ࡱ;   !"#$%&R@a%N1$a Fyros ro >[d@baouCompObj1e<\OLP;\WordDocument "O ;  @-dz -nhHn@`~ObjectPool&gR (" ; fg*d*d  FMicrosoft Word 6.0 DocumentNB6WWord.Document.6;  Oh+'0   #/7 ?Kh pz KThe Server:Applications:Microsoft Office:Microsoft Word 6:Templates:NormalDSFLDSFL'@د͕d@v@د͕d@ܥhO  e{'@n$ ::=====V=V=V=V=V=n= x=V=?K=========??????&,@X@?======?==============0=>========= THE ARLINGTON ADVOCATEPRIVATE  MARCH 26, 1998 BY Sean Corcoran Staff Writer THIS WILL ONLY HURT A BIT MS and Other Patients Turn to Bee-Sting Therapy for Serious Relief From Pain Moments before Markus Schmidt, 34, is to lie on his chest and have his girlfriend place five honeybees on his back, he admits he is nervous, but hopeful. Three years ago, a German doctor diagnosed Schmidt with Multiple Sclerosis. And the same desperate search for relief that has carried him as far as Africa has now brought him to this: bee sting therapy. "You place them down on my back, then they apparently sting," Schmidt tells his girlfriend, Jenna Abernathy. Abernathy has agreed to remove the bees from a small, matchbook-size box that arrived three days earlier via U.S. Mail from a bee farm in Maryland. The box now sits in a mason jar, drawing the curiosity of Abernathy's cat. Clutching a honeybee delicately between the prongs of a 6-inch pair of tweezers -- minutes earlier she accidently crushed the first bee she snagged -- Abernathy places the insect on Schmidt's back and urges it to sting him. After little encouragement and a few pokes from the tweezers, Schmidt stifles a scream and begins to bite the massage table beneath him. Through deep, labored breaths, Schmidt tells Abernathy he has heard he must keep the stinger in his back for 15 minutes when it will turn black. Schmidt wants his body to take in every minute trace of the bee venom he has been told may contain the relief he desperately seeks. Abernathy stings Schmidt four more times before he has had enough. He wanted to sting himself five more times, but decides that perhaps four is enough for his first therapy session. Truth be told, the therapy hurts. "Maybe I'm not desperate enough, but there's no law to this. Maybe I should just do five. Yeah, just one more," Schmidt says, his face and ears having turned a crimson red, while a blue vein has appeared prominently on the side of his forehead. Five minutes after the fifth sting, the pain has subsided. His legs feel warm and tingly, he says, and he has avoided his greatest fear: an allergic reaction that could have put him into anaphylactic shock. He expects to continue stinging himself five times a day, three times a week for the next six months to see if the therapy will alleviate the numbness on his fingertips and legs caused by MS. "We should have a bottle of wine now," Schmidt says. A LIVING LEGEND Charles Mraz, 92, sits in his kitchen in Middlebury, VT., and points to a pot of porridge on his stove. It is nearly noon, and he has not had time to eat his breakfast. Sometimes, he doesn't eat until as late as 3. Most mornings he is visited by people from all over the world who have come in search of relief from one ailment or another. Those who practice apitherapy, as bee venom therapy is called, talk about Mraz as if he is a miracle worker. They call him Doctor Bee. And a visitor at his door one morning is as likely to be a reporter from a national news magazine, as an MS patient there to tell him that if it were not for him, they would be in a wheelchair. "It does a lot of good for a lot of people," Mraz says. "Of Course, I don't have an M.D., and therefore I am not God, so doctors don't take me very seriously. If you tell doctors that you get stung all the time, they say it is gonna kill you. You're gonna have an allergic reaction and be dead in two minutes. But I'm 92 years old, and I don't know when I'm gonna get that reaction." Indeed, along with its potential other benefits, advocates say the therapy may also be a natural fountain of youth. Since the 1930s, Mraz has been trying to help others by letting them in on one of nature's secrets: bee therapy, he says, can help the lame walk, give the arthritic a chance to live a normal, pain-free life. Mraz was barely a teenager when he first began to raise bees in his home in Queens, N.Y. "I was told when I started keeping bees -- the old timers said: 'bee stings are good for arthritis.' That's probably the stupidest thing I ever heard, I thought to myself." But a few years later, Mraz was hit with rheumatic fever. He quickly became bedridden, and after nearly six months of indescribable pain, Mraz decided to listen to the old timers. At the time, the disease was so severe that he could feel pain by simply blowing air onto his knee. But the morning after he stung himself on the sides of his knee with two bees, the pain was gone. "It took me two hours to convince myself that what happened to my knee was my bee sting," he says. "After that happened I started treating people with arthritis. I've been doing that for 60 years." SCIENCE IS SKEPTICAL The science community has little use for anecdotal claims, and so far there is no scientific explanation as to how these people have found relief. Studies have shown that bee stings, as well as other toxic agents, will cause the body to release cortisone -- the body's own antinflammatory system. But cortisone is easily prescribed, and the fact probably means very little for patients with MS, a disease where it is believed the immune system misdirects attacks on nerve tissue, specifically upon the myelin sheath, the protective insulation that surrounds the nerve fibers of the central nervous system. Miles Guralnick is an entomologist and president of Vespa Labs, Inc. in Spring Mills, Penn., a world leader in the development and production of stinging insect venom for hospitals. Guralnick also has heard the miracle stories from MS patients. But despite studies, Guralnick says the medical community is stumped. "We've done three sets of experiments, and, quite honestly, we have not had any conclusive data from any of the three studies. We're not getting the proof either way that it does or doesn't have an affect," Guralnick says. "The group of people who utilize apitherapy for therapy for therapy for MS is a highly motivated group. So, they are willing to do crazy things like sting themselves with bees," he adds. Those who have had positive results with bee therapy are trying to spread the word to other sufferers, but the use of bees is highly discouraged by the medical community, as well as by groups created to support MS sufferers. "What you don't want people to do is go off on a tangent on something that is very, very dangerous," says Arney Rosenblat, vice president for public affairs at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in New York City. "We get a fair amount of inquiries because there is a magic quality about bees. But if it were eating lettuce or something more bizarre, then people would dismiss it. But we are studying this because there is a lot of anecdotal stories." The MS Society does not recommend bee therapy because it is concerned patients could have an allergic reaction, and also that patients will not take advantage of other available medical options. It has been medically proven that MS permanently kills the nerves as the disease progresses, Rosenblat said, and if MS patients turn to bee therapy rather than drugs, they may lose their opportunity to stop the disease before permanent damage is done. But there is no cure for MS, and patients are concerned that the drugs themselves could end up doing significant damage. Different drugs are continually being approved by the Food and Drug Administration for trials, each time to great fanfare by drug companies, but many times the drugs either do not work or are proven to cause damage to the body. For example, according to information provided by the MS Society, in 1997 "very large trials of reboquinimex (Linomide) in the United States and Europe were abruptly terminated because of unexpected cardiac toxicity." "When I started treating MS with bee venom and started having good results, some drug companies came out with Betaseron for MS. One company was charging $1,000 a month for it. Now that's the kind of medicine drug companies like. So, you can do it for six months, but then it's starting to kill you and you have to quit," Mraz says. Arlington's Kelly Ames, 29, said she was blind in her left eye and on her way to a wheelchair when she decided in 1994 that she would not place all her hope in the conventional medical treatments. It took three months of apitherapy before she could even feel the sting, but slowly her immune system started to wake up. Ames gradually regained her eyesight and stopped walking with a cane. Unlike the MS Society, Ames thinks MS patients should begin with natural bee venom before trying drugs. "I think people should treat MS with bee venom. There are a lot of people who are doing all these medications, and I would recommend to try the bees before you do the chemicals. Half the people doing the chemicals get sicker from it," Ames said. Since her recovery, Ames has committed herself to spreading the word of how bee venom can help MS patients. On a daily basis she receives thank you notes and gifts from around the world from people who have tried the therapy and are happy with the results. "I'm not making a dime here, but to get a letter that says someone can move their arm, that's great," Ames said. "I have my life back, so I am going to spread this word to anybody and everybody everywhere."  ࡱ; ....()()))()()K:phoenix⫧̥ȧȶƳƐƕƟƇƂȂČ҅ƷՔΌՔȅȂƫƢȂڶȢƷƎƁƨƕƵƤƤǂ֏SummaryInformation(Microsoft Word 6.0.12 ࡱ; Â㫇㥊⩖⠏奧‚ⵇ‚ﲃ⧓䧕‚⣞‚㲉‚悏ŏŠŏQfŠ悏^ffXfŏŠƏ悏Ƃ17JւŏŠƏ悁$f筂 ffffXf1䂏ꁦgŏQfŠ悏悏^fՁXfՏ穂Տ祂Տ終Տ䵧ׂgfIffIff$f筂ŏŠƏ悏ꁦgꁧgŏŠfggIfIff$f筂ƂŏWJg_悏ŏ笂fgfgŏŠÊ悏gf$f筂笂ɏҁ؏碂碕-碕-碕-碕-ŏQfŠ悏^fƏ悁$f筂碂壔䠩0f̏磂ɏҁ؏碂ُ碂碂碕䠥0ffFf䠵0f̏砂悏f堵0f̏硂ɏҁ؏碂碕-ُ碂碂碕Ƃf碕悁整f̏箂؏碂碕‚ُ碂碂̏硂碕f悁8f粃Ffύ?i鍀ꪨ͛뢮ɋ쬮񸴼ӑ޺ŷړݝߍ۹^غŃ殯昙顠闖diMAINdϫԦ˂ !"Un'o'z'{'X3uuDUuD(CcGC uDC #34FTUpZ'v \ HBmbcy c$^!"6$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$,0,H+$%&n'p'q'r's'u'v'x'y'z'{',0 !K"@"Normal3 ]a c"A@"Default Paragraph Font+@ Endnote Text *@ Endnote Referenceh@ Footnote Text &@! 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