I am very excited to share with you the opportunities to benefit from Laser Therapy at Oriens. These are “cold” or “therapeutic” lasers. We use them every day for pain and injury…back, joints, discs, sprains, TMJ, chronic pain, you name it.
And we LOVE them in our Alternative-to-Facelift treatments. The smoothing, tightening, lifting and collagen boosting is tremendous.
Aging, accidents, inflammation, damage of another sort--the many ways cold laser light is used yields the same result: repair and rejuvenation! P.S. Laser can be added to Acupuncture sessions. Or you can JUST do laser and be in and out in 15 minutes!
Why Low Level Lasers?
Most of us have heard of lasers for surgery or skin resurfacing, but have heard little, if anything, about the therapeutic use of lasers. Both types of lasers use light for their healing purposes.
Hot lasers operate at high frequencies with great amounts of energy, burn and cut the skin. This is an amazing and very precise surgical application.
Low level laser therapy (LLLT), also known as “cold” laser, uses much lower frequencies and penetrates the skin at varying levels. LLLT uses lower frequencies and fewer joules (a measure of energy output) to promote healing in tissues of all depths: from organs and bones to increasingly superficial systems, such as lymph, tendons, ligaments and muscles – and of course the largest organ in our bodies, the skin.
Over 3,000 clinical studies have been published worldwide, including over 120 randomized, double-blinded and controlled studies, on LLLT-- the type of therapeutic laser we now use at Oriens. European and American clinical scientific literature is packed with evidence of the effectiveness of LLLT, addressing “impossibles” such as spinal nerve regeneration. Peer-reviewed European journals chronicle their success with such difficulties as non-healing wounds. Laser therapy has advanced solutions for injury and pain management, such as herniated discs and TMJ disorders. They have been widely used for collagen regeneration for wrinkles.
The incredibly broad range of applications around LLLT is based on their ability to treat inflammation, the base cause of most tissue degeneration in the body and to regenerate cells. Lasers are even being used in hospice care in Moscow as “an analgesic, antioxidant, desensitizing, bio-stimulating, immuno-stimulating, immuno-correcting, detoxifying, vasodilative, anti-arrythmic, antibacterial, anti-hypoxic, anti-edematous, and anti-inflammatory therapy.”
Advantages for Patients:
- Advanced Pain Solutions
- Accelerated healing and recovery times
- Options for needle-free acupuncture
- Painless and non-invasive therapy
- No need to stop or modify work and activities
- Short appointments (15 minutes) with abbreviated treatment cycles
- Option to include laser for special needs during regular appointment
- Long-lasting results
- Effective rate upwards of 80%
How LLLT Works
The particular LLLT laser we use at Oriens is the TerraQuant Cold Laser with Advanced Super Pulse Technology™. The TerraQuant laser has been used in more than 30 countries over the last 15 years, and it is the only laser to offer the unique combination of four types of therapeutic technologies (described below under “Specialties of the TerraQuant”).
LLLT, or cold laser, is the use of specific wavelengths of light to stimulate therapeutic effects on a cellular level. This process is known as phototherapy, or photobiomodulation: it is the process by which exposure to light triggers a chain of chemical reactions.
Starting with the Greeks, and for centuries since, light has been used as a therapy. Consider solariums, and the early recommendations to visit the seaside and take in the sun. If you reminisce back to high school physics, you’ll remember that photons are the units of energy of light – and that they are both wave-like and particle-like.
Laser therapy delivers a concentrated amount of photons into the tissue, where your cells can absorb and convert them from light energy into biochemical energy. The photons interact with your cells at the level of the mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell), stimulating increased production of ATP by up to 500% (ATP is the actual energy unit of your cells).
What’s amazing is not that one photon activates one enzyme molecule… but that one enzyme molecule, in turn, can process thousands of other substrate molecules. This is the mechanism by which a relatively small amount of energy produces very significant biological effects. Through initiating a variety of biochemical processes, laser therapy optimizes your own cells’ ability to naturally heal themselves. The end result of LLLT is pain reduction, improved healing times, decreased swelling, and increased circulation.
Specialties of The TerraQuant
The TerraQuant Cold Laser with Advanced Super Pulse Technology™ is the only laser to offer the unique combination of four different types of therapeutic technologies: low level super-pulsed laser, wide-based infrared radiation, red light, and a magnetic field generator. This combination helps to relieve pain, decrease inflammation, and optimize cellular conditions for natural healing.
This laser:
- Stimulates cellular activity, growth, and metabolism
- Stimulates enzyme synthesis
- Increases cellular respiration (optimizes the intake of nutrition and the expulsion of waste)
- Increases the energy of the cell
- Enhances collagen synthesis
- Provides antioxidant effect
- Supports the immune system
The super-pulse technology of the TerraQuant is particularly remarkable. By “super-pulsing”, the laser is able to provide a high amount of energy and photon density while maintaining a very low mean energy output. It provides a peak pulse of 25 watts, but sustains it for only 100–200 nanoseconds, resulting in a mean power output of only 1.5 milliwatts. This peak pulse allows for short treatment times at deep levels of penetration (for accessing deep structures such as discs, joints, tendons, ligaments, and organs not accessible by other lasers), while the low mean output prevents the generation of heat.
Research Highlights
• Acute injuries: improves swelling and edema
• Bone Fractures: stimulates osteoblasts for bone healing
• Chronic Joint Disorders: pain reduction and improved health status
• Immunosuppression, post-chemotherapy: in pediatric oncology patients, post-chemo, ↑ counts of mature
T-lymphocytes, T-suppressors, and lymphocytes—“general improvement without any complications or side effects”
• Ligament Injuries: improves ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and stiffness
• Nerve Injuries: anti-inflammatory effect on damaged spinal cord and potential role in nerve regeneration
• Peripheral Neuropathy, including diabetic and chemo-induced: ↓ pain, ↑ sensation
• Post-Herpetic Neuralgia: reduction in pain intensity and distribution
• Post-Operative Vomiting: reduced in children undergoing strabismus (eye) surgery
• Post-Radiation Skin Reactions: shortens recovery time
• Stroke (ischemic): accelerates healing
• Wounds: accelerate wound healing and tissue repair, including necrosis, venous stasis ulcers, episiotomies and perenial
tears from childbirth
• Wrinkles: increases collagen production
The Conditions Most Commonly Treated in the U.S. with LLLT
Laser therapy is a highly effective and pain-free means by which to treat a wide variety of pain and inflammatory conditions. As skin issues are linked to and driven by inflammation, most skin conditions, including acne and wrinkles, can be addressed effectively. Treatments are quick (usually less than 20 minutes) and typically provide immediate effects, which over the course of a treatment cycle yield cumulative and long-lasting or permanent results.
If you do not see your concern on the “common conditions treated” list below, or to access more information on laser therapy, please ask. We’d be happy to discuss how to integrate laser therapy into your overall care with us. For additional technical and clinical information about laser therapy, check out these sites:
• www.superpulsemypain.com
• www.laser.nu
➢ Arthritis
➢ Back Pain: upper, middle and lower, including herniations
➢ Bone fractures
➢ Burns
➢ Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
➢ Chondromalacia Patellae
➢ Diabetic Neuropathy
➢ Fibromyalgia
➢ Joint Injuries: elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, wrists, fingers and toes
➢ Lower Back Pain
➢ Muscle Strains
➢ Neck Pain
➢ Nerve Regeneration
➢ Neuropathies
➢ Plantar Fascitis
➢ Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
➢ Repetitive Stress Injuries
➢ Shingles
➢ Shoulder Pain and Injury
➢ Strain, Sprain and other soft Tissue Injuries
➢ Swelling/Edema
➢ Tendonitis
➢ Tennis/Golfer’s Elbow
➢ Tinnitus
➢ Trigeminal Neuralgia
➢ TMJ Syndrome
➢ Trigger Points
Laser can be added to Acupuncture sessions. Or you can JUST do laser and be in and out in 15 minutes! We hope you'll take advantage of what it can do for you!
Elizabeth Carpenter, MS, L.Ac., CEFP, Founder and Director of Oriens
*Very special thanks to our former intern, Ginny Wick, who helped prepare this article.
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