Apitherapy and Acupuncture For Pain Relief

Video Transcript

Patient - In, 1976 I had an injury as a Court Reporter, lifting boxes of Court Reporters' notes and I had lost the feelings in my hands and my arms. And after 6 months of, quietkinda therapies, they did surgeries and I had leminectomy and I went back to work and I got the leminectomy and I got a disability retirement in 1980 and, so I started to study pain. I had so much pain in my spine that I had another surgery for arthritic spurs and that surgeon sent me to another medical doctor, an internist, who specialized in arthritis. He did an MRI and all kinds of tests and the MRI showed I have what they call spondolitasorspondolitis which is disintergrations of the disks of the spinal cord. And also, the MRI showed that I have stinosis, which is narrowing - the narrowing of the spinal canal - and also arthritis of the spine.

He sent me to an orthopedic surgeon, who recommended a fusion - another surgery - and I thought "no way, three's enough" and he recommended a brace and I said "no, that's not going to do it" because the pain seemed to vary in the different parts of my legs and back - upper back. So someone told me about the Pine Street clinic and I also went to a physical therapist. And between the two I did bee-sting therapy, acupuncture; I did work with the physiotherapist.

Michael McCulloch, L.A.C - Arthritis is a form - it's a condition in which you're more likely to get a quick response to the treatment. Arthritis is - because you can access, you know, localized areas where, the problem is most active.

Patient - I refused to take the pain medication for the arthritis because it affected my stomach so we start with the bee-stings.

Michael McCulloch, L.A.C - So, we'll go in the second room on the left.

If you think about the role of honey bee venom and acupuncture, you can apply your stings on acupuncture points for an enhanced overall systemic effect. As you have not only the effect of the venom on the body systemically, but you have the stimulation to that point on that meridian on that organ system so you can really fine tune your use of the venom by bringing in your acupuncture point selection into it.

Acupuncture actually had its origins as folk medicine and the license practice of Chinese medicine is only a very very recent phenomenon; in the last three percent of the entire history of the Chinese medicine itself. One way to think of the acupuncture points is the expression of the developing sophistication of the person's energy throughout the course of their life. So, let's say when you're born, as a baby, you only have a few very large points on the body - the elbows, the shoulders, on the back, the legs - and over the course of a person's life, as they develop; as they mature; as they - their energy becomes more sophisticated, more differentiated, then new points - large points develop into smaller points and at the peak of a person's life, you can say they have the most number of acupuncture points on the body; the most number of expressions of their energy.

Patient - So, if you've heard of the story of how sometimes something's horrible happens and it changes your life, the injury changed my life. I had to lie on my back; it was a couple of years until I could really get moving and I said to myself "I'm going to change my mind. I'm just not gonna do - I'm tired of - I'm going to try and see if I can change everything about my life" and that's what started it. The bee-stings and the acupuncture have been incredibly helpful. I'm still - at 78 - I'm still emerging.