Woman Dies After Getting Acupuncture That Uses Live Bee Stings

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Woman Dies After Getting Bee Sting “Acupuncture”

A woman in Spain died recently after undergoing an alternative acupuncture treatment, in which they used live bee stings instead of needles.

This wasn’t the first time the woman got the treatment, either. The 55-year-old had been receiving the “apitherapy” treatment once a month for two years, and did so in an attempt to treat both tight muscles and stress. But things went awry during one session when the woman, “developed wheezing, dyspnea, and sudden loss of consciousness immediately after a live bee sting,” according to a report in the Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology.

She was taken to hospital and given both adrenaline and antihistamines in an attempt to stop the reaction, but she died a couple weeks later after suffering from multiple organ failure.

“Apitherapy,” also known as “bee acupuncture” involves a practitioner placing a bee somewhere on a patient’s body and pinching the insect’s head until the sting emerges–which of course causes the creatures die shortly afterwards. The technique is most popular in China and Korea.