Therapy Lasers: Hand Held Low Level Light Therapies
Therapy lasers are one of the newest appliances to make their way into the home health and wellness industry. You can purchase laser appliances, which claim to help heal sport’s injuries, relax muscle strain, alleviate stress, and even improve your skin tissue. The home therapy laser devices are not to be confused with the high powered laser technologies used in procedures in the medical field.
In hospitals, doctors use high-powered lasers to help perform surgeries. Laser therapy is also used to treat different types of cancers. Optometrists have developed laser surgery procedures to improve vision, while dentists use a completely different type of laser light technology to harden the plastics used in dental procedures. Light technology is becoming a heavily researched field with many potential applications and benefits.
For home use, you might consider a cosmetic therapy laser, which claims to improve collagen levels in the skin to help reduce wrinkles. These units are said to heal damaged skin cells to repair sun and age spots. European dermatologists claim this type of appliance will indeed promote tighter, firmer, and younger looking skin.
The basis of skin renewal using this method is based on the fact that our body contains billions of individual cells which all have to reproduce. Changes such as wrinkles, stretch marks, sagging skin, and age spots are signs that our skin’s cells are being attacked by free radicals. They need more energy to reproduce.
Low-level laser light concentrates light from the red spectrum–the visible portion of electromagnetic radiation–to revitalize the skin cells. This light is said to have healing properties that penetrate the power plant of the cell (mitochondria) and is absorbed as additional energy. With more energy, the cells are more apt to reproduce and create more healthy cells. This type of light then invites the body’s natural mechanisms to stimulate cell and collagen growth, aiding in the healing and revitalizing of the skin.
If you are wondering when the use of low-level laser therapy began, it was shortly after the discovery of the first gas laser in 1962. Since that time, scientists and doctors throughout the world have been directing laser light on living cells to treat illness and heal skin conditions. In order to direct bio-stimulative light energy to the body’s cells, low-level laser therapy makes use of sub thermal laser light energy, and without injuring or damaging them in any way. Unlike surgical lasers where the energy range lies between 3,000 and 10,000nW (NanoWatts), low-level laser light falls between 1 and 500mW (MilliWatts).
Additional home laser therapy devices have been developed to treat different types of physical injuries, such as sports sprains, strains, and other types of tissue injuries. They also address musculoskeletal conditions and are used to reduce and control pain. Therapy lasers are said to provide accelerated wound healing. There are even appliances that can perform laser acupuncture without needles.
If you are leary of laser treatments for skin aging, sports injuries, and chronic pain, there is research documentation establishing the efficacy of this healing method. The latest low level, non-invasive therapy laser technologies are being scrutinized. For more information, a good resource is Laser Therapeutics, Inc. If you are contemplating purchasing a light therapy device, a qualified company will make their research available to you upon request.