II.2. THE APITHERAPEUTIST

The apitherapy should not be confused with the regular consumption, of course beneficial, of the bee products. The recommendation for the administration of the honey bee therapeutic products should only be done by specialists and only by gender, age, condition, body weight, pursued therapeutic target, stage of disease, laboratory tests values, other medical investigations, any concurrent disease or family history etc..

The apitherapeutist must also know the field of the possible contraindications or side consequences that have some honey bee therapeutic products. Seemingly harmless, some bee products, bee food supplements and even some standardized honey bee therapeutic products, if improperly managed, can have significant side effects ranging from allergies to relieving the onset of autoimmune diseases. Asserting the lack of contraindications or/and of the side consequences of the honey bee therapeutic products is more than a legend.

It is known that the drugs are actually substances. If a product contains a single substance or a complex of two or more substances, this depends on the therapeutics, pharmacokinetics valences, with which it is invested by its manufacturer. The doses in which a certain drug and its combination with other medicines which have to sustain or to moderate its actions in the human body, according to the therapeutic pursued target depend on the knowledge, the experience of the physician, but also of the clinical and paraclinical knowledge of the patient, including of the holistic point of view the family history, too. There are gifted doctors who transform their profession in the art. They are those who treat the patient seen as a whole - body, mind and soul - but also as a part of another whole: his/her living environment (social, family, economic, occupational, its habitat, diet, natural or urban environment, etc.. ). These people know well not only medicine, but also the patient. Always the clinician while making up a therapeutic protocol must know not only the information but also the contraindications, adverse side effects of the medication prescribed.

 The honey bee therapeutic products, most of them, especially those standardized, are complex therapeutic substances and their prescription requires, in addition to the medical knowledge, the knowledge of their synergistic action, as well as those of their antagonists.

They speak at the level of the common knowledge about the contraindications or side effects, more or less aggressive of the drugs. They are well known to the specialists - doctors and pharmacists. The iatrogenic diseases (caused by taking certain medications), are a relatively common “what ?”. Were dedicated to them, inclusively in Romania, further studies of considerable stretches. There were - and still are - studies on the safety and efficiency of the various drugs. Some drugs, whose aggression requires it, are removed and banned. The drugs, however, are still necessary. There are, for example, cases in which their immediate and highly professional use, will save lives. Nothing can replace the peace that descends in the patient soul, conscious that his life hangs by a hair and of the speed and professionalism of the medical interventions, when he/she sees the white robe near the bedside. No one, not an expert, do opposes the honey bee therapeutic products to the chemical synthesis drugs. Ideally would be that they are employed together in those cases where they could increase and support their effects or, where appropriate, be employed the ones recommended by the efficacy and safety studies.

In the clinical researches that we began to systematize, we aim to draw the attention to the complementarity of the chemical synthesis drugs and some of the honey bee therapeutic products, but mostly we are going to outline and argue those cases where the apitherapy is sufficient and superior in a significant number of diseases. The apitherapeutist without a superior qualification which must include the solid medical knowledge, medical biochemistry and, of course, the molecular and cellular biology, will risk himself, following inadequately a therapeutic target, to trigger the occurrence of iatrogenic diseases.

Related to these ideas, the apitherapeutistl is – he must be – the qualified intermediary between the honey bee therapeutic products and patient. At the same time, it is the intermediary between the previous allopathic medication with its effects and the apitherapeutic protocol it establishes to the patient. First, however, it is necessary to make a statement. There are cases where, inpatient or outpatient, treating a certain primary disease by a medication inappropriately prescribed, it can cause secondary diseases, iatrogenically determined (through the prescribed medication). There are not few the cases where the doctor following a therapeutic target, especially in cases of a severe prognostic diseases, possibly fast-acting, knows which are going to be the secondary, iatrogenic diseases the patient risks with a particular medication. This medication, however, is considered to be the only way to intervene and therefore does not involve any fault. Whatever the cause of the onset of the iatrogenic diseases could be, they are rooted in the substances to be found out in the structure of the prescribed drugs. Such substances with possible iatrogenic consequences may be found out in the structure of the honey bee therapeutic products, too. Therefore, the apitherapeut, in order to be able to establish correctly a therapeutic protocol, must extend the study on the medical records of each clinical case in part, starting from the investigations for the diagnose of the early disease. It is obvious that, in doing so, he also must follow the scroll of the medication with its possible side iatrogenic diseases, so as to avoid to stress by apitherapy the secondary consequences and certainly to not determine the setting of others ones.

The knowledge of the substances contained in drugs previously given should be doubled, in the case of the apitherapeutist, by the knowledge of the actions of the substances contained in the honey bee therapeutic products. The apitherapeutist, in addition to the thorough history, should know, therefore, to interpret correctly the biochemical values ​​recorded in the laboratory, to be able to follow their progress throughout the previously medications followed by the patient. He also need to know to interpret under the clinical context any medical records submitted by the patient - radiology, ultrasound, imaging etc. If that serves to the apitherapeutic act, the apitherapeutist must have the necessary knowledge to recommend to the patients any other medical investigations.

If the risks of the self-medication were relatively frequently discussed in the medical literature, the risks of the selfapitherapy are also real. When we’ll submit to the analysis the casework of the diseases that we intend to highlight as being successes of the apitherapy, we will return in more detail and concrete examples on these issues.

Obviously, the similarities between the pharmacochemical therapeutic (allopathic) act and the one conducted by employing the honey bee therapeutic products do not exclude the existence of some differences. Some of these are significant. The iatrogenic consequences of the usability of the honey bee therapeutic products are fewer, less severe, but there are risks. Unlike the allopathic medication, the apitherapeutist has at hand not only the substances that are accredited agents with action potential, but also substances which can hold them, or can control their actions moderating them, limiting them or, if necessary, they can even prevent the unwanted side consequences. Of these, a prominent place is especially occupied by the huge biomolecules capital, biocompatible to the human identity. However, with a huge medical value, they certainly can not be reproduced in laboratories, so they can not reach the allopathic medication. For exemple, the pharmacochemical synthetic hormones, about which they state that are identical to those in humans, but which do not act, however, identically. But, given the interest that they present, we will return to these ideas. Thanks to the very large number of substances that the honey bee therapeutic products make handy to him, the apitherapeutist is bound to have very solid medical knowledges, but also in the fields of the endocrinology, enzimology, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, immunology etc.

And because the apitherapy is a medical science with proven clinical meanings, the beginner apitherapeutist should have, before starting to treat by himself, a period of probation with an apitherapeutist with a recognized clinical experience. The structural complexity of the honey bee therapeutic products requires it.