The world of medicine is constantly improving. The continuous research and development has paved way for many alternative treatments that can be a stand alone cure or can act as supplementary treatment to existing therapies. One of the more recent developments involves cold laser therapy, also known as photobiomodulation.

What is photobiomodulation?

Although the word sounds prohibitive and hard to understand, any body can comprehend this therapy as long as the right explanation is offered. Cold laser treatment involves being exposed to low level laser light in hopes of eliminating or decreasing various symptoms that individuals suffer from when they are ill.

Photobiomodulation puts to use laser light or light emitting diodes on certain areas of your body and this affects cellular functions. If you are wondering what laser light is or what LED is, these are the same technologies being used in traditional lighting, or automobile lighting, and even in devices such as computer screens. The difference lies in the application of laser light - healing with laser only calls for low levels of exposure.

If you remember, you should have learned about the properties of light in your physics courses. The two most important things to know are that light has different wavelengths and intensity. The wavelengths depending on their length and frequency, produce visible light colors (red, violet, etc.) while intensity is the energy given out by light.

In essence, cold laser therapy involves the release of these properties of light in very low levels to the body of an afflicted person. This practice started becoming main stream when a doctor experimented with the newly-developed laser light in skin cancer in mice. The experiment proved that laser light increases the capability of skin cells to allow the re-growth of hair in shaven mice.

There is still ongoing research on the efficacy of cold laser on numerous diseases. This is because there is much more to be learned about controlling laser light levels in order to maximize its healing potential. Of course, the studies involve the perfect way of combining wavelength, intensity, the duration of exposure per treatment, and the length of days or months that treatment is not done. The goal of these researches is to know exactly what combination of the four elements would be most helpful in specific illnesses.

However, cold laser has already been approved as an alternative therapy by the FDA. This means that information about the therapy's effects in clinical use is already available. It has been deemed very safe to use these low levels of laser and it has been seen that laser therapy does affect either the stimulation of or inhibition of certain cellular functions.

Cold laser treatment is already being used for skin wounds, muscle and tissue injuries and pain control. More clearly, this therapy is already available for the treatment of chronic pains such as arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, among others.

Vikingorigins:

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It seems clear that cold laser has an effect on the skin and hair (not to mention dangerous to eyes).
The big question for Dupuytren is: might this effect slow it ? or accelerate it ?