Bee venom therapy

Bee venom therapy or BVT or bee sting therapy or apitherapy is an alternative treatment proposed to result in possible health benefits in some medical conditions, although it has not been proposed or investigated in patients with ME/CFS. It is sometimes used in traditional Korean medicine.

Bee venom therapy can take several different forms:
 * live bee stings under the supervision of a trained practioner
 * bee venom acupuncture (BVA), or
 * bee venom injections

Evidence
Clinical trials have not been conducted for ME/CFS patients so potential harms have not been identified, and it is not known if this would be safe or effective.

A randomized crossover study of bee sting therapy in patients with multiple sclerosis by Wesselius et al. (2005) reported:
 * "There was no improvement of disability, fatigue, and quality of life. Bee sting therapy was well tolerated, and there were no serious adverse events."

Clinicians
The use of bee venom therapy for ME/CFS patients has not been proposed or investigated by researchers or specialists in ME/CFS treatment, although a variety of other conventional and alternative treatments have been investigated.

Risks and safety
Unknown in ME/CFS patients, however clinical trials in other patient groups have shown high levels of adverse reactions.

Live bee stings involve apply bee venom directly to the skin (not injecting it) and has a high risk of adverse reactions. Bee venom acupuncture, which involves injecting bee venom diluted to a ratio of less than 1:10,000 to acupoints has a significantly lower rate of side effects.