Many Animal Toxins Have Potential For Pain Relief

The Peruvian green velvet tarantula is hardly the first animal that has been found to produce a toxin that can relieve pain. There are a variety of animal-based treatments for pain relief that have wide, if not universal, acceptance in the medical world.

• Apitherapy, or treatment by bee stings, has been used to treat the pain of arthritis (especially rheumatoid arthritis) and neuropathy for generations. Bee venom may be injected into a painful joint for pain relief. For neuropathic pain caused by multiple sclerosis or stroke, some holistic practitioners inject the venom into acupuncture points for relief of pain in other parts of the body. Exactly why this works, no one knows, but many practitioners and patients report that it indeed works. Bacteria that live in honey, scientists have also discovered, fight some of the viral infections that cause pain, such as herpes.

• An injectable form of a medication derived from the venom of a Brazilian wasp seems to be inert in healthy tissues but active in tumor tissues. The toxin tears holes in tumors that allow greater access by the immune system or chemotherapy. As such, this toxin doesn't cure cancer on its own, but enables the body's immune defenses and standard treatments to work more effectively. The preparation is known as Mitaparan.
• A marine snail that is so large that it hunts fish, Conus magnus, produces a toxin that paralyzes the fish on which it feeds. A synthetic drug called ziconotide (Prialt) that is based on the snail's toxin is one of the few medications that can be used to treat chronic, intractable pain such as spinal cord injury when Cabatrol, Lyrica, and Neurontin don't work. These snail-based medications aren't easy to use. They have to be injected intrathecally, into the spine itself, with a pump that is worn by the user. There is a very narrow range in which they are effective. Too little and there is no pain relief, too much and there are serious complications. However, for some people, they are the only effective form of pain relief other than being "knocked out."
• Erabutoxin B, found in the venom of the broad-banded blue sea snake, has the potential for treating the changes in pain sensitivity that come with nicotine withdrawal. It may also be a treatment for certain symptoms of Alzheimer's. As yet, treatments based on this naturally occurring toxin are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or by the regulatory bodies of the EU.

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• No fewer that 240 species of spiders have been found to have venom that has the side effect of enabling pain relief. The Peruvian green velvet tarantula is currently the best studied of these spiders, but many other poisonous spiders, including the black widow and brown recluse that are common in North America, are being studied as sources of new treatments that work in relieving chronic pain that can't be treated with other drugs.