After working a 12-hour day performing stunts for his new movie Geostorm, Gerard Butler relied on a controversial holistic treatment to release his muscle strain — and he ended up in the hospital.
The treatment is called Apitherapy, or Bee Venom Therapy, and involves a patient being injected with the venom of multiple bee stings. Proponents of the therapy, like fellow star and goop-founder Gwyneth Paltrow, say that anti-inflammatory agents in bee venom help with such conditions as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, bacterial infections, and muscle strain.
During an interview on ITV chat show Lorraine, Butler said that he tried the therapy almost on a whim. "I had heard of this guy injecting bee venom, because apparently it has many anti-inflammatory compounds. 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 said, according to The Guardian.
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"Then he gives me 10 shots, and then I have the worst reaction. I kind of enter this anaphylactic shock. 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."
That didn't stop the star from going back for another round of treatments after being released from the hospital four days later. He told Lorraine that he thought he had just gone overboard the first time, and decided to give it a second try. But he ended up in the hospital after his second treatment, too.
Bee sting therapy has been used in some cultures for thousands of years, but doctors told Health in 2016 that there's not enough science to prove the therapy is safe or even has the benefits people claim it does.
For now, they say, it's best to avoid bee stings rather than seek them out.
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