Gerard Butler Tried Bee Venom to Treat His Sore Muscles—and Landed in the Hospital

The practice, known as apitherapy, used to use live bees placed on inflamed areas on the body. Now, the venom is simply injected to allegedly help with everything from rheumatoid arthritis to multiple sclerosis. However, as Jeannette Graf, a New York dermatologist, told Vogue, the science simply doesn’t exist yet to backup the use of bee venom as medicine. “Bee venom has the potential to help minimize symptoms—the science isn’t really there yet, but there’s potential for things that don’t respond to western medicine,” she said. In a 2015 scientific review, researchers analyzed 145 past studies on the therapeutic use of bee venom—and their conclusions weren't particularly encouraging. If you put those past studies together, a median of 28.87 percent of patients experienced adverse reactions to bee venom therapy. The researchers wrote that "adverse events related to bee venom therapy are frequent," and they've been found to include everything from skin reactions to anaphylaxis.