Gerard Butler tried bee venom to treat his sore muscles—and landed in the hospital

October 21, 2017 10:13 PM

Here's what to know about the risky practice known as "apitherapy."

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The Scottish-born actor recently revealed that he was hospitalized after willingly getting an injection of bee venom in a quest to ease his sore muscles following a day of filming stunts for his new movie, Geostorm.

“I had heard of this guy injecting bee venom, because apparently it has many anti-inflammatory compounds,” Butler said on an ITV talkshow. “So, I’m like: ‘Come, come to New Orleans where we’re filming.’ So, he gives me a shot, and I go: ‘Oh, that’s interesting’—because it stings.”

Butler explained that the practitioner then went on to inject him 10 more times, at which point he had a predictably bad reaction.

“I kind of enter this anaphylactic shock,” Butler said. “It’s awful, creepy crawlies all over me, swelled up, heart’s going to explode. But I go through it, and then I find out he gave me 10 times too much.”

He said that following the procedure, he was immediately transported to the hospital and treated. But then somehow, even with the hospital stay, Butler said that just four days later, he gave the muscle recovery remedy one more try.

“I decide to do it again because, I think: ‘Maybe I just took too much.’ So, he’s on the phone, and this time I have to go to the hospital [again].” He added, “The guys at the hospital are like, ‘What is it this time?’ But I made it through, [although] now I have to worry anytime a bee is around!”

While this treatment may seem totally bizarre, Butler isn’t the first to try it. In fact, as The Guardian explained, bee venom has been used as a remedy for inflammation for centuries.

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.