Saturday, April 18, 2015

Bee venom in the fridge

Because doesn't everyone keep bee venom in their fridge?

Noah has finished about a year's worth of his bee sting allergy shots, out of the probable five total.

We pick up the bee venom at the pharmacy and take it to the hospital with us when we go.

This last time, he didn't react, so that's good news and means he gets to skip a shot next month and only go again in June.

Unfortunately, what we still don't know is whether this protects him against yellowjackets in the US or not, so we get to keep our epi-pen prescription current, too.

2 comments:

Bryan Layton said...

Hello,
I'm a beekeeper in Mississippi. I'm not allergic to bee stings myself but I worry someone in my family might someday be. Is this treatment available in the US or is it just a European thing?

Alisa said...

Hi, William. From what I've read, I believe it is available in the US, but I'm not sure how widespread its use is. It's supposed to be very effective. We certainly hope it will be!

The protocol takes a long time, though - five years' worth is what they've told us here. For the first several injections, we had to stay at the hospital all day "just in case." Now it's a question of an hour or so, checking vital signs, and taking antihistamines for a few days as a precaution.