Hi all
 
I have seen a few posts on the bee sting line again. I am a person
who is blessed/cursed with a number of food allergies and have a
brother who had an allergy to his own platelets (life threatening
problem) so as a result have had to do a lot of background research
about the immune system to be able to have an easy time.
 
My first discovery is that doctors are of no use when it comes to
allergy problems. You need a person who has actually specialised in
the functioning of the immune system. GP's know next to nothing about
this from their training. That is not to say that a good GP will not
have learned, but most will just try to prescribe an antihistamine, a
anti-depressant or mixture to hide the symptoms. This is faster, and
more profitable than finding the effects.
 
With bee stings it is different as this is life threatening.
 
When we are stung by a bee a number of chemicals (both protein and
other) enter the blood system. The body recognizes them as foreign
and cells in the immune system that can bind to those specific
poisons begin to stimulate the production of antibodies to the
poisons. If you are stung again, the poisons are now coated with
these antibodies, but because you have not been highly sensitised the
reaction will be small. Few antibodies have been produced and so few
bind. Each antibody which binds is capable of binding the poison
antibody complex to a cell called a mast cell. This cell contains
histamine which is released and causes swelling and the smooth muscle
symptoms we all know.
 
If you have a lot of antibodies to bee venom and get stung, the
amount of histamine released will be huge and can be life
threatening. Naturally, this is a stupid system as it would not make
sense for ones immune regulatory mechinisms to kill one fast, so we
have cells called regulator t cells, similar to the helper t cells
killed by HIV, that can control the histamine response and reduce the
symptoms. That is when you are protected.
 
So, to be resistant to bee stings you must keep a healthy population
of regulator t cells, so get stung a few times a month and you are
safer than if you get stung a few times a year.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
---
Garth Cambray       "Opinions expressed in this post may be those
15 Park Road         of Pritz, my cat, who knows a lot about
Grahamstown          catfood."
6140                       *[log in to unmask]*
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
In general, generalisations are bad.
But don't worry BEEEEEE happy.