Benefits of Photobiomodulation

Photobiomodulation (PBM), also known as low-level light therapy (LLLT), is a therapeutic approach that uses specific wavelengths of light to modulate cellular activity and promote healing. Here are some key benefits of photobiomodulation:

1. Pain Relief: 

PBM can effectively reduce pain and inflammation in various conditions, including arthritis, musculoskeletal injuries, and neuropathy. It works by decreasing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and increasing the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers.

2. Accelerated Wound Healing: 

PBM promotes faster wound healing by stimulating cellular processes that enhance tissue repair and regeneration. It increases collagen production, improves blood flow, and reduces inflammation, aiding in the recovery of wounds, burns, and surgical incisions.

3. Reduced Inflammation: 

PBM has strong anti-inflammatory effects, making it beneficial for conditions characterized by chronic inflammation, such as tendinitis, bursitis, and inflammatory skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema.

4. Enhanced Muscle Recovery: 

Athletes and individuals with muscle injuries can benefit from PBM, as it helps reduce muscle fatigue, soreness, and damage. PBM improves mitochondrial function, leading to increased ATP production and enhanced muscle repair and recovery.

5. Improved Joint Health: 

PBM can alleviate symptoms of joint disorders, such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, by reducing pain, stiffness, and swelling, and promoting cartilage health.

6. Neurological Benefits: 

PBM has shown promise in treating neurological conditions, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It enhances neuronal function, reduces oxidative stress, and promotes neurogenesis.

7. Enhanced Cognitive Function: 

PBM can improve cognitive performance, memory, and focus by increasing cerebral blood flow, reducing neuroinflammation, and stimulating the production of neurotrophic factors.

8. Skin Health and Rejuvenation: 

PBM enhances skin health by stimulating collagen production, reducing wrinkles and fine lines, and improving skin texture and tone. It is also effective in treating acne, rosacea, and other dermatological conditions.

9. Improved Circulation: 

PBM enhances blood flow and vascular function, promoting better oxygen and nutrient delivery to tissues. This can aid in the healing of chronic wounds and improve overall tissue health.

10. Reduced Fatigue: 

PBM can help alleviate symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and general fatigue by boosting cellular energy production and reducing oxidative stress.

11. Enhanced Immune Function: 

PBM can modulate the immune system, promoting a balanced immune response. It can help reduce the severity of autoimmune conditions and support overall immune health.

12. Non-Invasive and Safe: 

PBM is a non-invasive, painless treatment with a low risk of side effects. It can be used as an adjunct therapy alongside other treatments to enhance therapeutic outcomes.

Overall, photobiomodulation offers a versatile and effective approach to improving health and well-being by leveraging the healing power of light. Its wide range of applications and benefits make it a valuable tool in both clinical and home settings.

Full Podcast can be found at: Conversations to Inspire

Transcript:

When we started Discovery Health Healing Center. And when I say we it's. My husband Tim and I decided to do more than just me seeing people one on one. And we wanted to make a center. We were starting with near infrared light therapy. And so the Thor Medical is the company that we work with for FDA approved and medical aid equipment to provide near infrared light therapy. It's also known now as Photobiomodulation, which just means light in the body to create change. I had seen an email about a conference about near infrared light therapy, or the photobiomodulation, and I got interested in that and I thought, I don't know what that is, and then attended the conference to learn more. My dad had been diagnosed with ALS, and he was really the inspiration at that time to say, we need to get this I have to get this service because my dad needs this service. And to help his brain, to help the neurological condition that was starting and the amazing benefits of near infrared light therapy within the body, for acute and chronic injury, for inflammation, for range of motion, for cellular healing. Again, the near infrared light we absorb, just like we do UV light and UV lights, we need to make vitamin D. And vitamin D is used in every single cell of the body. So the sunlight is not bad. Getting burned and repeat, getting sunburned is bad. But we need sunlight. So we shouldn't all be blocking the sunlight all the time because vitamin D is so very important. But essentially, our skin and our cells absorb that UV light and we put it to work. We do the same thing with near infrared light therapy. So there's a lot of different therapies out there. There's a lot of different products that you can buy, and the risk is you don't know what it's really providing. That's why we use Thor Medical, because time and time again, third party studies, we know exactly what they're delivering. They do a ton of research. This company is out of the UK, but they have many of their products in the United States as well. They work with NASA and the Navy and research institutions and the photobiomodulation research that's out there is using this type of equipment. And there is many other light wavelengths out there. Red light therapy is not the same as near infrared light therapy. Red light therapy is superficial and it's great, but you can get a lot of red light therapy products, and you think they're doing all the same things as near infrared. So, again, as a medical provider, it's very important to me that I differentiate that, because I hear people talking about it wrong all the time. Everybody refers to it as red light. And red light is what you get after you have a facial and after you're working to help the skin. It's wonderful for the skin. And there's green light and there's blue light and they have different health benefits in the body. But the majority of photobiomodulation and the research, the changes that can happen healing nerves. There's research of cutting a nerve using near infrared light therapy and the nerves grow back together. It's phenomenal at how it promotes healing and repair. Again, working at the cellular level to kick out free radicals or toxins or whatever bogs down the cell so the cell can use more oxygen and then it functions normal. And when cells are functioning normal, you no longer have a symptom. So we have a NovoTHOR whole body bed that delivers near infrared light. It helps to give pain relief, it improves the circulation in the body, it decreases inflammation, it helps to reduce your stress all because it helps to get things out of the way so your cells can have more oxygen and perform normal. So we see people coming out of the bed and being like, wow, I always have a hard time putting my shirt on and I just put my shirt back on and it didn't hurt me at all. And just the dramatic change of inflammation or being able to turn their head better after doing a couple of sessions and then there's other people who come out and they don't notice such a significant difference. But we know it's changing things at a cellular level. We also do a thor helmet, which isa concentrated effort on the brain for strokes, for concussions, for any neurological condition like ALS, MS, Parkinson's disease, dementia, memory problems. It's facilitating better circulation in the brain, removing the things that are bogging down that brain function. And a great example of a woman that I've known for several years. She's come to do IV nutrition for a different health problem, but who had a stroke in the fall and actually in September, and she went through speech therapy and she did all the medical treatments and she just started coming again in March to start using the thor helmet because she could not regain her speech. She forgot words. She couldn't get words out of her mouth. She couldn't hold a conversation. She barely talked on the phone with her family because she could not participate in the conversation at hand. And so that was very different for her. When medically, when you look at somebody who's had a stroke, they go through all the therapies whatever they regain as far as function. After six months, it's deemed that's all they're going to get back. That's like the medical line in the sand to say if it didn't come back after six months after the stroke, if it's not back by now, it's probably never coming back. And she is a great example of she started coming going underneath the helmet and her words started coming back and she can have conversations and she's not forgetting. Her and her husband have been so happy that after the second session under the helmet, they started noticing a difference and she's been coming repeatedly to continue to improve. But it's phenomenal. And it was six months after the stroke, she had done all of the medical treatments, she did exactly what she was supposed to do and she had a difficult time talking and sleeping and now it's all changing. So she's a great advocate, of course, but a perfect example of when you give the body what it needs, there's more healing and repair that can happen. But the problem is she wasn't given it in those six months and so she's doing the best that she can, getting some IVs as well with the helmet, and she's just so happy. That's an incredible success story. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. For someone to come out of a stroke and still have debilitating functions and then to be able to turn that around, that is a true testament to alternative and complementary medicine. Absolutely. That's wonderful. And the other point about that is the therapies that we provide here, the services aren't going to interfere if somebody's doing a different type of therapy as well, or another medical treatment. IV therapy would be the one thing thatI'm always double checking on with medications or especially people who are taking cancer medications. But to make sure whatever we're doing won't interfere because we don't want to interfere, we don't want to compete. It's to complement and get things functioning better within the body to help things resolve. That makes total sense because you're laying that strong foundation so that they can use building blocks to build their health back up. But if they don't have that strong foundation to begin with, then where do you start? Because no matter what, it's not going to hold and it's not going to stay. Right, so that's fantastic. Right, so that's our photobiomodulation or our near infrared light therapy. We have a helmet, we have the NovaThor full body bed. And then we also do acute and chronic injury with local treatments, shoulder injuries, neck injuries, low back pain, sciatica, things like that. And I'll often recommend chiropractic care or massage and different things that can help that condition as well. But the light therapy can penetrate very deep to help get inflammation out of the way so that then the increased circulation, the body knows how to heal itself, it's just that there's so many things in the way. So it facilitates that. It is a great testimony as well to decrease pain. Without narcotics, it can be an adjunct. It can relieve pain quite well for many people to help them get off of pain medication or not to need pain medication. That's another great service with near infrared light therapy. That is huge. If you can help people again to feel better so that they can start hacking away at the small parts or they're not small, they're huge. But if you can hack away at the parts that aren't working right and you said the body's always healing itself. So if you just give it the tools that it needs, clear away the debris, allow it to do its natural healing, it's going to take over and it's going to do it. But you have to give it the tools exactly, including the junk. And there are many times I've got great examples where it works perfect. It was the perfect thing for that person, for their symptoms or their condition that they had going on. And then there are other time sit wasn't perfect for that person. It helped. But we need to pull in other therapies as well, or target it a little bit differently, because we'd like to think the body is black and white and that it's super easy, just test this and you know exactly what to do. But the body's way more complicated than that. And we don't always have the right testing. There's no lab test that is perfect or 100%. It gives us clues, not answers. And that's where people can often get misled.