September 2013 To February 2015
The patient was seen every 36 weeks over the course of 1.5 years. Prior to her first follow-up visit, she reported symptoms characteristic of JarischHerxheimer reactions that she was struggling to control . Based on this information, the doxycycline was discontinued. At her first follow-up, she was changed to a different antibiotic and was recommended various herbs for detoxification support . Follow-up labs indicated that with the initiation of treatment, IgG titers rose for Mycoplasma pneumonia but fell for Chlamydia pneumonia . Therefore, Mycoplasma pneumonia was viewed by the treating physician as the more probable factor contributing to ME/CFS. In addition, the JarischHerxheimer reactions she continued to experience were further suggestive of a chronic infection .
Serology results from IgG specific antibody levels for both Mycoplasma pneumonia and Chlamydia pneumonia. Dotted lines separate the 2 different phases of treatment . With the initiation of treatment, IgG levels rose for Mycoplasma pneumonia but fell for Chlamydia pneumonia. Mycoplasma pneumonia was viewed by the treating physician as the dominant contributing factor to the patients illness during the first phase of treatment. Large gaps are present for Chlamydia pneumonia as this was not measured consistently.
Bioactive Forms Of Light
There are basically five different bioactive forms of light, and Ill start with a couple that people might have, you know, that their brain will start to connect the dots here and theyll realize they actually do have some familiarity with.
DrMR: Ari, just one quick thing here before you launch in, just to help kind of get the audience with us in case theyre a bit skeptical. Remember that sun could be thought as an example of this, and weve talked on the podcast previously how beneficial sun exposure is and how detrimental lack of sun exposure is. I think we already have kind of an ancestrally grounded premise that should make us, or help us be open minded to light as having therapeutic benefit.
AW: Exactly, and yeah, thats exactly where I was going to go. The thing is with the sun theres lots and lots of different wavelengths, and theyre active through different physiological mechanisms. One mechanism that people will have heard already, and maybe they didnt realize it this way, but sunlight, specifically UV light, interacts with our skin in order to help our bodies make vitamin D. We make vitamin D from UV light exposure on our skin, okay. Everybody has heard of vitamin D and we know that its a regulator of over 2000 genes in our bodies, and affects the immune system and is linked with all kinds of disease and mortality outcomes. Vitamin D is really, really important. Well, thats just one wavelength of the sun thats affecting our bodies function.
Skin Health And Appearance
Another popular use for red light therapy — and an area that it excels in — is improving the health and appearance of the skin.
It boosts blood flow, bringing oxygen and nutrients to the skin cells to encourage healing and reduce inflammation. It also increases the production of collagen by stimulating collagen-producing cells called fibroblasts. Collagen is the most abundant protein in our body. It’s found predominantly in connective tissue and acts as the “glue” that holds everything together and gives the skin strength and elasticity.
Unfortunately, poor nutrition and lifestyle and ageing all decrease our production of collagen, and the appearance of our skin suffers. By encouraging collagen production, red light therapy firms up skin, reduces fine lines, wrinkles and sagging and generally improves your appearance.
A 2014 study found that volunteers who had two weekly sessions of red light therapy saw significant improvements in their complexion compared to a control group . Excitingly, it also reduced signs of aging.
Research has also confirmed that red and NIR light therapy can improve the skin by healing and reducing :
- Skin discolouration
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The Ultimate Guide To Red Light Therapy And Near
Medical ReviewerContentsReferences
What if the missing key to achieving your fat loss, anti-aging, and health goals was light?
Of course, everyone knows about the importance of vitamin D from sunlight . But few are aware that there is another type of light that may be just as vital to our health red and near-infrared light
Think its all just hype? Think again! Believe it or not, there are now over 3,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies showing incredible health and anti-aging benefits of red light therapy and near-infrared light therapy, proving that they can help you:
- Fight skin aging, wrinkles, and cellulite and look 10 years younger
- Rid your body of chronic inflammation
- Fight the oxidative damage that drives aging
- Increase strength, endurance, and muscle mass
- Build resilience to stress at the cellular level
- Speed up wound/injury healing
- Combat some autoimmune conditions and improve hormonal health
- Optimize your brain function and mood
- Overcome fatigue and improve energy levels
If there was a pill that was proven to have all these effects, it would be hailed as a miracle drug. Hundreds of millions of people would be told to start taking it by their doctors every day. And people would tell you that youre crazy if you werent taking it.
How To Reduce The Work Of The Immune System: Reduce Microbes That Are Outside The Gut But Inside The Body
This is more difficult because the body needs some sugar in the blood stream to function and microbes can happily ferment this. These are not at sufficient levels to cause overt infection such as septicaemia or abscess, but are present in sufficient numbers to drive a destructive low grade inflammation. I think of this as microbial allergy. We need other methods to kill these microbes. Established options and suggestions are as follows:
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Exercise Performance And Recovery
Red light therapy is extremely helpful for those looking to improve their muscle gains, physical performance and recovery.
Our muscles are loaded with mitochondria, so red light therapy before a workout stimulates ATP production and increases muscle energy, performance and time to exhaustion. It can also warm up joints and muscles to reduce the chance of injury.
When used after physical activity, it improves blood circulation and oxygenation in muscle tissue to prevent delayed onset muscle soreness and speed up muscle repair and growth.
Research also suggests red light therapy can :
- Improve muscle strength
Does Red Light Therapy Help Fibromyalgia Relief From Inside Out
Among the greatest benefits of red light therapy is that it does address some underlying causes or triggers of fibromyalgia, including chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and psychological stress. For that reason, red light is considered a promising therapy for fibromyalgia sufferers .
A major scientific review that confirmed this was published in May 2019 by researchers from Taiwan, who analyzed nine published randomized controlled trials that collectively involved 325 fibromyalgia patients. Overall, about 95 percent of patients receiving LLLT demonstrated statistically significant improvement in their pain severity, fatigue, depression, and other factors, without any adverse side effects.
In the published review, the authors write: Our results provided the most up-to-date and relevant evidence regarding the effects of LLLT in fibromyalgia. The authors go on to say that LLLT is an effective, safe, and well-tolerated treatment for the disorder.
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How Big Is The Light And How Much Of Your Body Can It Treat At Once
Most photobiomodulation devices have a very small treatment area capability.
Most handheld devices and red lights sold online as skin improving/anti-aging devices offer about 10mW/cm2 and only treat about a 5-10 square inch area, meaning youd have to use the device for 30-60 minutes to cover a significant area of your body.
But if you get a device with a high power output that also treats a large area at once, thats where the magic is.
Higher powered devices, like the lights I recommend, deliver close to 100mW/cm2 at about 6 from the device and still have effective doses even a full 24 away! This is a huge benefit, because now even a smaller light can basically function as though it is a full human body-sized light! In other words, a powerful light thats 15 long can be positioned 24 or even 36 away from your body, and since light spreads out the more you move away from the source, that light can now give an effective dose to nearly your entire front or back of your body at once!
So again, it can basically function the same as a light that is 3 times the physical size .
Having a high-power light that is also large enough in size allows you to treat large areas of your body at once in just a few minutes. You can treat an area like the face, the whole torso or legs, or even do multiple parts of the body and effectively, the entire body, in just a few minutes!
Try Red Light Therapy Today
If youre interested in trying out red light therapy, give PlatinumLED panels a try.
Looking to get more out of your LED panel? Red light therapy also combats the signs of aging, improves muscle tone, regrows hair, eases arthritis pain, and more! Browse through the articles on the PlatinumLED blog page to discover the many whole-body applications for red light therapy.
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How To Use Red Light Therapy
Its important to have a blood test to ensure that the symptoms youre experiencing are not, in fact, a different condition. Once you have approval from your doctor, you can safely use red light therapy at home.
Heres what youll need:
A quality, high light energy output LED panel has the power and coverage area to deliver red light deep into your lower back and to your throat, which is the seat of the thyroid gland.
The pituitary gland is located deep within the brain, which means even near-infrared light waves may not reach it but NIR light can help reduce systemic inflammation. On a side note, red light is a safe therapy for various brain ailments including TBI, stroke, and Parkinson’s.
Red light therapy is best delivered via LED panels, which range from a tablet-sized panel ideal for spot treatment to full-body panels for overall wellness. Avoid hand-held wands, which are too weak to generate the deep absorption needed to reach the adrenals or thyroid.
Red wavelengths absorb into the layers of skin, where they stimulate normal cell functioning and reduce inflammation. These wavelengths, however, arent long enough to absorb into the adrenals or thyroid for that, you need longer near-infrared wavelengths.
The PlatinumLED BIO series lets you choose between 660nm or 850nm wavelengths, or use them together in a 50/50 ratio.
How Light Affects The Adrenal Glands
For centuries it has been known that the human body reacts to light. Our bodies create energy from light, much like the process of photosynthesis in plants. Every wavelength of visible and invisible light has a different absorption depth into the body, and different effects based on those depths.
To examine the effects of light on the endocrine system, which governs the release of hormones, researchers at the Lighting Research Center of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute conducted a study in 2010. During the study, which was published in the International Journal of Endocrinology, the researchers compared the effects of blue and red wavelengths on levels of the hormones melatonin and cortisol.
The findings were noteworthy in relation to adrenal fatigue because both melatonin and cortisol are known to affect the functioning of the adrenal glands. Thus, modulating the release of melatonin and cortisol may help ease symptoms.
Melatonin, often called the sleep hormone, plays a significant role in the sleep-wake cycle. Its production increases in response to darkness in order to promote healthy sleep. Blue light after dark suppresses melatonin production, but the negative effects of this are most commonly found in excessive use of cell phones or computers, not due to blue light therapy sessions, which tend to be far shorter than time spent using electronics.
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Why Use Light Therapy
Some of the biggest protagonists in the chronic disease epidemic are blue light exposure at night and lack of natural light in our daily life. We can see how this can lead to health problems such as sleep deprivation, inflammation, digestive issues and hormone imbalances which all contribute to chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes.
When we dont get adequate natural light, it affects every cell and process within our body. Humans were made to use sunlight for optimal health. Healthy light is essential to every cells function, and a lack of light can lead to chronic disease and illness. Lack of sunlight has been known to cause anxiety and depression because not enough sunshine depletes brain serotonin and dopamine levels, and those low levels can lead to disabling mood conditions. Our modern human lifestyles, consisting of a life spent indoors and behind screens, is not conducive of a natural light environment. This is where red light therapy comes into play.
Light Therapy Boxes Can You Help
- Light therapy boxes can you help?
One of our members, whose energy levels always seem to dip during the dark days of winter, is considering trying a light box.
Feedback from anyone who has used a light box would be appreciated along with details of any product which is recommended.
Please leave a message in the comment facility here or email the MEA at:
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What Is Red Light Therapy For Chronic Pain
Red light therapy, also known as photobiomodulation and low-level laser therapy, involves shining red and near-infrared light in the 650-850nm spectrum. With its many benefits, medical professionals have long used red light therapy to treat various skin conditions, relieve pain, and more.
The first recorded use of red light therapy was in 1903 when Niels Finsen, a Faroese physician, used it to treat smallpox lesions. However, it wasnt until the late 1900s and early 2000s that researchers began to study red light therapys effects on chronic pain.
More on these studies in a bit
Can You Overdose On Photobiomodulation
As I mentioned, there is something called the biphasic dose response. But what does that mean?
That means that too little red/NIR light therapy wont provide much, if any, benefit, and too much will also negate the benefit.
In other words, its important to get the dose right and to be in the range Im recommending. You arent doing yourself any favors by dosing higher than my guidelines suggest.
Below are two illustrations meant to give you an idea of the optimal dosing surface tissues and deep tissues.
Here is an illustration of the general optimal dose range for skin treatments :
Here is an illustration of the general optimal dose range for deeper tissues beneath the skin:
I know there is a tendency in human psychology to want to do more and think that higher amounts of something will be better i.e. if a little is good, a lot must be better. So let me repeat one more time for emphasis: With red/NIR light treatment, more DOES NOT equal better.
Stick with the recommended dose range, start with the lowest end of the range, and dont be in a rush to do a lot more. The benefits may be most optimal in the lower to mid-range of the recommended dosage.
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Do You Offer An Initial Free Consultation And Treatment Session
Yes, please book your free consultation with Rupert Molloy to have your questions answered. There is absolutely no obligation and you will also receive a free NovoTHOR Whole Body Light Pod session. During the consultation Rupert will evaluate your condition through examination and questions about your medical history. He will then determine whether Photobiomodulation Therapy is the best course of treatment.
Choosing The Right Light Therapy Device
It’s great news that handheld red and NIR light therapy device are becoming more easily available. But how do you know the device you buy has therapeutic benefits? That’s a good question!
For maximum benefit, look out for the following:
- Efficient and durable LED lights
- Clinically proven red light waves between 630-680nm
- Clinically proven near-infrared light waves between 800-880nm
- A low electromagnetic frequency output
Devices that fall outside the recommended wavelengths, such as 600 or 700nm, will not affect your cells.
Our portable red and NIR light therapy device offers a light-weight and convenient way to get the amazing benefits of red light. It has a surface area of 12cm x 14cm and provides powerful wavelengths of 660nm and 850nm. The power density of our light is 20mW/cm at 50cm and 100mW/cm2 at 5cm.
Our super charged red light therapy power panel range provides high powered targeted treatment with 40 x 5w high powered LED’s providing 660nm red and 880nm near infrared wave lengths for maximum mitochondrial stimulation and energy and healing and recovery benefits.
The power density of these panels are the most powerful avaliable on the market with the PowerPanel MEGA providing a massive 161mW/cm2 at 6 inches.
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