If you have pain, you want to feel better quickly. Acute and chronic pain can interfere with how a person functions daily. Many doctors prescribe pain medication to ease the symptoms. However, pain medications can also interfere with daily functioning, plus many other side effects, including addiction.
There is an alternative technique for treating pain, cold laser therapy, that is noninvasive, safe, and effective.
What is Cold Laser Therapy?
Cold laser therapy is sometimes called low-laser therapy or photobiomodulation by medical professionals. It involves using photons, tiny particles that send out waves of electromagnetic radiation. In general terms, small light particles.
Specialists use a cold laser therapy tool, like a flashlight, placed directly on the skin in the area of pain. The light penetrates the skin and travels to the damaged tissues, changing the chemical makeup to heal faster by improving blood flow to the site. It also eases pain and stimulates mitochondria in muscles, nerves, ligaments, and fat.
The Uses
This has been a treatment method that has been well-researched and proven to work in numerous applications, including the following:
- Inflammation
- Pain management
- Wound healing
- Skin rejuvenation
- Traumatic brain injury
- Autoimmune disorders
- Skin conditions
- Fat loss
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Muscle injuries
- Tendonitis
- Musculoskeletal conditions
- Neuropathy
- Wound healing
These are just a few of the ways this type of therapy is helping people around the world. Some reports say there are hundreds of uses for this treatment. There seem to be many benefits, too.
Which Body Parts Benefit?
Cold laser therapy can positively affect almost every body part but in different ways. Below are examples of the body parts and common ailments this therapy can treat.
Ankles and Feet
Strain, sprains, and other injuries can cause pain and hinder mobility. Cold laser therapy treats these conditions, as well as arthritis, plantar fasciitis, tendinitis, and inflammation.
Knees
Cold laser therapy benefits common knee problems, like ligament and meniscus damage, knee replacement, cysts, and arthritis. It is also helpful in treating cartilage tears, tendonitis, bursitis, and infections.
Lower Back and Hips
If you have ever had sciatic pain, degeneration of a disc, bone or joint infections, arthritis, or bursitis in your hips or lower back, you understand how painful it can be. Simple movements can send pain throughout the body if you’ve fallen and fractured a bone in your hip or lower back. Cold laser therapy can ease this pain and speed up healing.
Arms
Many bones, muscles, tissues, and cells are vulnerable to injuries, disease, and pain from your fingers to your shoulders. Arthritis and bursitis may be present in any of the joints. In the hand and wrist area, conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, trigger finger, tendonitis, sprained wrists, pseudogout, and cysts can be treated with cold laser therapy.
In addition, tennis elbow, muscle bruises, rotator cuff tear, frozen shoulder, forearm, and clavicle fractures are other arm and shoulder conditions that benefit from low laser treatment.
Neck and Head
The head and neck area of the body are vulnerable to various injuries, infections, and other ailments. Some common conditions treatable with cold laser therapy include traumatic brain injury, pinched nerves, neuralgia, sprains, strains, muscle spasms, spinal stenosis, and disc degeneration. Inflammation can lead to stiff neck, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, meningitis, and encephalitis. This type of therapy reduces inflammation and, therefore, eases pain.
How Does Cold Laser Therapy Ease Pain?
Easing pain with cold laser therapy happens in more than one way. It decreases nerve sensitivity, partially blocks pain signals to the brain, and stimulates the release of the body’s natural pain relievers. For example, endorphins and related enkephalins alleviate pain when signals are sent from the nerves to the brain for their release.
This therapy relaxes muscles like acupuncture by working on trigger points. It also makes nerves less sensitive.
How Does Cold Laser Therapy Reduce Inflammation?
Cold laser therapy helps tissues regenerate quicker, encourages mitochondria to make energy from cells, increases blood flow, and improves lymphatic draining. When lymph nodes drain well, a person will notice reduced swelling, which allows tissues and cells to heal properly. Further, this therapy increases the production of enzymes, blood flow, collagen, and kinetic energy.
What Are the Benefits?
Low-light therapies have been found to have good uses in treating seasonal affective disorder, jaundice, vision, and much more. Each condition uses light therapy differently. Cold laser therapy reduces inflammation and relieves pain in the following ways:
- Detoxifying the body
- Losing weight
- Speeding up healing
- Reducing scarring
- Improving blood flow
- Improving metabolism
- Enhancing nerve regeneration
- Improving the immune system
- Decreasing the need for pain medications
This alternative therapy has a few disadvantages, like fewer insurance companies paying for the procedure. Fortunately, it is considered cost-effective.
What to Expect?
Cold laser therapy does not hurt. Many report it is a comfortable process that occurs on an outpatient basis inside your doctor’s clinic. Your doctor will likely have you sit or lie down, whichever is most comfortable for you, and they will mark different treatment spots. The doctor will then hold the therapy tool to your skin in the area where you feel pain. They then deliver the “dose” of low light. You do not feel the light penetrating your skin.
While many people report feeling relief after a single therapy session, it generally takes multiple sessions to achieve the greatest results. Some physicians recommend two to three times a week to start.
Getting Started
You are a good candidate for this type of therapy if you are in relatively good health, have joint or muscle pain that won’t go away, or have had surgery and want to assist the healing process. Anyone looking for alternatives to pain medication should talk to their doctor about cold laser therapy.
If you’re looking to travel outside the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom, then Lyme Mexico Clinic is an excellent place to learn more about this alternative treatment. Call them today to see how you can benefit.