A little bee venom may be a good thing. Some people are so allergic to bee stings and other insect bites that they are in danger of potentially lethal anaphylactic shock. Such shock can be fatal if obstruction of the airway occurs, blood pressure drops, or heart rate or heart rhythms are interrupted. One method of treatment involves injecting small, periodic doses of venom from bees and other stinging insects to help the patient build up immunity. Venom therapy was developed in the 1970s at Johns Hopkins.

In a recent study by Johns Hopkins and published in the June 2009 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the same venom shots can help treat non-fatal but serious allergic reactions to insect stings. While not dangerous, large local allergic reactions can be painful and inconvenient. People who have jobs or hobbies such as landscaping, gardening and golfing are likely to be adversely affected by painful reactions that may cause severe swelling that lasts for days. Until now, if the reaction was not life-threatening, they were typically denied venom therapy.

“We just didn’t know if venom therapy would work or cause problems for these patients,” says David Golden, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
To find out, he and his colleagues recruited volunteers who were subject to unavoidable frequent stings owing to outdoor jobs or hobbies. From that group, Golden selected those whose reactions were marked by extremely large swellings of at least 16 cm—about the size of a football.

Golden’s team subjected the subjects to an initial sting to rigorously measure their response, then separated them into two groups: 19 who would get venom shots once a week for seven to 11 weeks over a summer, and 10 who would get no shots. While the control group members’ responses to stings stayed the same, those in the treatment group showed 50 percent less swelling on average.

After the first summer, both groups received venom therapy for up to four years. Following two or more years of treatment, both groups had swellings about 60 percent smaller on average than initial measurements, though the response to treatment varied.

Golden and his team plan to investigate why some patients experienced almost complete elimination of their allergic reaction whiler others still experienced moderate swelling. Click to read more about the study.

Post your questions about allergies and chat with other allergy sufferers at Healia Allergy Online Health Community and Support Group.

If pollen and other outdoor allergens—rather than stinging insects—cause your allergic reactions, find out more about how to treat them in the Healia Outdoor Allergies Guide.