Light healing devices
Posted by on 01/28/08 in light healing
You may have heard of low-level laser healing. Stories are that now in India surgeons use these devices more than they operate for certain conditions!
However we don’t need lasers to get healing. We are, by nature, “light beings”, meaning that we emanate biological light (see the Acuvision post).
A few years ago, scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee harnessed the healing power of light with the help of technology developed for NASA’s Space Shuttle. They used powerful light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, originally designed to grow plants in space, to heal wounds and produce other miraculous recoveries.
LEDs don’t heat the tissues the way lasers do; because LED uses longer wavelength (redder) near-infrared light, it penetrates the tissues deeper.
The LED healing devices certainly works against hard-to-heal wounds, such as diabetic skin ulcers, serious burns, and severe oral sores caused by chemotherapy and radiation. A wound-healing device was placed on the submarine USS Salt Lake City, and doctors reported 50-percent faster healing of crew members’ lacerations when exposed to the LED light. Injuries treated with the LEDs healed in seven days, while untreated injuries took 14 days.
The wound-healing devices are a small, 3.5-inch by 4.5-inch (89-millimeter by 114-millimeter), portable flat array of LEDs, arranged in rows on the top of a small box. Biologists have found that cells exposed to near-infrared light from LEDs, which is energy just outside the visible range, grow 150 to 200 percent faster than cells not stimulated by such light. The light arrays increase energy inside cells that speed up the healing process.
Readers will probably think right away about the Russian SCENAR (or SKENAR), a small hand-held device that uses electromagnetic therapy for fast amazing healing.
One of the great applications has been the rapid healing of painful mouth ulcers caused by cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy. This is a very miserable condition, sometimes so uncomfortable the patient cannot eat and has to be fed IV.
Now the treatment is quick and painless. A nurse practitioner places the box of LEDs on the outside of the patient’s cheek about one minute each day. The red light penetrates to the inside of the mouth, where it seems to promote wound healing and prevent further sores in the patient’s mouth.
Clinical trials are ongoing.
The device also has healing possibilities where certain chemo agents are sent to the tumor selectively and then activated by infrared light transdermally. It has already had great success in kids with brain tumors.
Of course you can expect Big Pharma to attack the effectiveness of something so simple. They want to sell more chemo drugs, not heal lives.
Still, this is a development well worth following. I’ll keep you posted.
NOTE: The Bemer 3000 uses similar LED therapy, coupled with their patented and very effective Bemer frequencies.
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Kent Noonan | Dec 15, 2008 | Reply
Greetings Dr. Scott-Mumby,
I’m an expert with lasers and electro-optics, designing for almost 30 years. I was skeptical for years when people made claims about lasers and LEDs healing. I didn’t see any literature to support it, but also didn’t look for it. In the last 2 years, I’ve made a complete revision of my opinion. These things are near-miraculous. Lot’s of literature to support it. I heartily recommend “The Laser Therapy Handbook” by Tune’r and Hode. Also the works of Tiina Karu.
I want to make a small correction in your statement here. Lasers and LEDs can cause equal heating with equal power levels. There is significant evidence that lasers are more effective for healing than LEDs due to coherence, but also that LEDs are quite effective. In most cases, the wavelength chosen can be based on the depth of penetration desired. Infrared goes deeper than visible, even through bone.
I tried an experiment last week that stunned me. I had dental work done and when the anesthetic wore off, I was in intense pain. I used an infrared laser through the cheek into the trigeminal nerve and surrounding tissue for about 5 minutes. The pain relief was immediate and complete. I went from incapacitated by pain to completely pain free in about 1/2 hour, most of it in the first 5 minutes.
This field needs much more study. I am rapidly forming the opinion that lasers can be used for almost everything that requires healing. Of course that’s not true, but it is worth trying since it is simple, no side effects in proper dosage, and often effective. The list of known effective medical and dental indications covers several pages of fine print in the book referenced above.
An important observation I need to offer: Many of the currently marketed devices utilize arrays of LEDs and or lasers of different wavelengths that are flashed in various combinations. There is significant evidence that some combinations of wavelengths can negate all of the benefits, and other combinations can enhance it somewhat. In general it is better to use only one wavelength in a session unless it is certain that the combination is better. In some cases, there is a time delay requirement of an hour or more between exposures to achieve synergistic combinations. Most beneficial combinations require that visible red is used after either the longer or shorter wavelength, not before.
My earlier opinion of lasers not being effective was based on trying a device that used multiple wavelengths and finding that it did not make much difference.