Lasers have been studied since they were invented in the 1950’s. Every day I receive notifications of new studies and discoveries of the ways low level laser therapy can stimulate cells to heal.
Studied by NASA and long preferred by professional and Olympic athletes who need to get back into the game as soon as possible, laser technology for treatment of acute and chronic pain associated with neck, back, and other musculoskeletal issues is now becoming popular with the general public.
This state-of-the-art approach to pain treatment applies specific wavelengths of light to promote tissue repair and reduce inflammation in a noninvasive, nonsurgical way. The treatment is painless and for most patients offers relief after just a few appointments.
Why has it taken so long for cold laser therapy to be taken seriously? One difficulty is that the effects can be subtle, failing to provide a clear picture of so called “photobiomodulation” — that the light was somehow triggering novel, positive biochemical activity. A second difficulty is associated with pain therapy, which is a field often associated with fraudulent medical claims.
That’s precisely why a new paper published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Science Translation Medicine is so important. The study was performed by a team of researchers at Harvard University’s Engineering, Medical, and Dental schools. The paper offers one of the most conclusive and careful control set experiments ,whose results show clear evidence of photobiomodulation in rats. But what makes the paper truly groundbreaking is that it offers, for the first time, a hypothesis regarding a mechanism by which photobiomodulation may occur in mammals.
A major benefit of laser technology for the treatment of pain is that it can eliminate the need for long term anti-inflammatory usage, steroid injections and other invasive pain treatments, and for many patients, allows them to avoid surgery altogether.
Pain relief usually can occur as fast as 1 minute, decrease in inflammation in 1 hour, and tissue repair begins in one day.
An acute injury requires one to five treatments and for a chronic injury five to 20 treatments. The sooner an injury is treated, the faster it recovers. The recommended frequency for treatment is usually two to three times a week.
I love receiving feedback after your cold laser session, so feel free to leave a testimonial. Thank you!