The Woman Who Stings Herself With Bees To Control Ms

[BigRog]

The Woman Who Stings Herself With Bees To Control Ms  

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SHE admits it hurts. But Paula Cooke believes allowing herself to be stung by bees every day is helping in her battle against MS.

The 40-year-old mother of two has been stung up to six times a day after spotting the unconventional treatment on the Internet.

She has live bees sent by post to her home where she carries out the treatment with the help of her mother.

Although bee stings can be dangerous - killing up to nine people a year through allergic reactions - Mrs Cooke is convinced they are making a difference.

'I have 110 per cent faith in the bee sting treatment working,' she said.

'I have the worst form of MS which gets progressively worse but this has given me real hope.

'I have had MS for 15 years, and have always had to keep my left eye closed because it was all blurry. But all of a sudden I can see out of both eyes.

'I can also move some of my toes for the first time in years and can relax my hamstrings enough to put on a pair of jeans. I know the bee stings won't ever make me fully better but it seems to be working.'

Mrs Cooke has been having the stings for four months after her father discovered the treatment, used by some alternative practitioners in the U.S., on the Internet.

But the recent cold snap affected the delivery of the bees and she had to stop. 'I was having bees sent from a woman in London but the Christmas post and the cold weather meant they were dead when they arrived,' she said at her home in Terrington St Clement, Norfolk.

'It meant I wasn't able to have bee stings for two weeks and so it's set my treatment back.

'I've now had to start building up the number of bee stings I can have at one time again because it hurts so much. I had built up an immunity to the pain.'

Mrs Cooke's mother, Jillian Fisher, collects the bees from a local beekeeper.

'I get them out of the jar with a pair of tweezers and place them on Paula's legs and back where they sting her and then they die,' Mrs Fisher said. 'Before she is stung we put ice on her skin to help dull the pain.

'At first I hated it but you get used to doing it and I know it's helping Paula.'

[Jay]

There's a guy in my bee club who supplies a few people he knows with bees for apitherapy. He even brought in the dustbuster vaccume he modified with a plastic jar instead of the regular dust collector as a bee vaccume. Pretty cool stuff!