LED/Deep Light Therapy

[peter eldergill]

Hey all

I went to some physiotherapy last month and was treated by some deep penetrating light therapy with red/near infrared light to help the healing process in my knee (which I hurt pretty badly playing hockey)

Does anyone have any experience with this therapy? Is it useful? Of course my therapist says it is, he's taken courses etc...He also said that the studies done for verification use blood samples and so forth.

I just want to be confident that if I do it again, I'm not wasting my time. I tried to look up some stuff on google, but had a hard time sifting through the articles

Pete

[Jerry]

In general, applying moderate heat to a joint after major stress/exertion helps accelerate the healing process. Sports medicine as practiced by physical therapists is a true science, but check the license - there is a lot of quackary out there.

[sarongsong]

...I went to some physiotherapy last month...Is it useful?...Was it more than one session and for how long were the lights on?
Have heard about attempts to use LEDs in the red and blue spectrums (http://www.ledgrowlights.com/sales_retail.htm#Blue lights) for indoor gardening.

[peter eldergill]

I went 4 or 5 times and had the therapy done for 25 minutes total at 4 different strengths. I don't recall the wattage, but it was small.

Jerry, there was no heat (well, none that I could tell).

The problem is how can I tell if it worked, or if it was a natural healing process...anecdotal to me at best, do I "feel" better. Hard to say.

I forgot that they also did ultrasound the first time I went (but only the one time)

Pete

[mike alexander]

Sounds a bit fishy to me. The only use for LED therapy I'm aware of is as an implant (!) in tumors to convert an infused drug to an active substance. Not the same thing.

If you want to add heat there's good old diathermy, or the even older and gooder heat pack or heating pad.