Red Light Therapy

[SnowMachine]

Currently have a meniscus tear that is annoyingly painful, but not really holding me back from work/play on skis. I've visited mcskis meniscus thread and it mostly confirmed my feelings about avoiding being scoped/cut at most costs.

Curious if anybody uses red light therapy for recovery. It's all the rage in IG ads these days. Reviews seem very mixed. Any first hand input?

[sb]

PRP or stem cells will give the best result.

LBG, light beam generator, will help if you still have swelling other wise RICE.

I have been getting along well with compression for a similar injury one month ago.

[SnowMachine]

PRP or stem cells will give the best result.

LBG, light beam generator, will help if you still have swelling other wise RICE.

I have been getting along well with compression for a similar injury one month ago.

I've been curious about the stem cell deal. Definitely not mainstream yet. My doc didn't have any real input on it?

[Dantheman]

Stem cells are a minefield of quacks and snake oil salesman. There's obviously huge promise there, but there's an enormous dearth of RCTs confirming safety and efficacy and no established standards for which cell types to use, how to deliver them to specific tissues, and in what concentrations. The only guaranteed outcome is a much lighter wallet.

RLT is interesting in that there does seem to be some legit science that shows real promise (https://spinoff.nasa.gov/NASA-Resear...-Uses-of-Light). But, and it's a big "but", that research hasn't been followed up with rigorous RCTs and it all used expensive tech capable of emitting very narrow and specific wavelengths at high power. Virtually all of the consumer-level commercial devices on the market today are probably useless.

[DeepHelmet]

We bought into iCryo here in SLC. They have a cryo chamber (obviously) but also one of the latest versions of the RLT beds. You can adjust the Htz according to what you want out of it. Maybe it works really well, or maybe I'm just justifying the money we spent, but my shoulder and knee pain are improving. Whether that's from the cryo, RLT, compression therapy, or infared sauna I don't know. I do know that I generally feel better overall. Wife has had the same experience.

[Cagey]

Last season I had “really really bad” Grade 2 sprain of my MCL, along with fracturing on my medial femoral condyle (crushed by my MCL) and lateral tibial plateau (crushed by my femur). Near Infrared light was part of my daily recovery routine. And I can say my doctors were shocked at how quickly I recovered - especially for a 48 year old. Not sure if the red light did the trick on its own but I’m a believer. YMMV.

The NIH published a supportive study on NIR and D1 college athletes. Link below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4846838/

[SnowMachine]

Thanks everybody!!

I'm tempted to try one of the Kineon units. It advertises a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Right now my doc wants a MRI that will cost $1k out of pocket if I do it local. Feels almost worth the gamble.

[sb]

Interesting, seems worth a try.

I have used the LBG and PEARL rife machines both with reasonable success.

[SnowMachine]

Last season I had “really really bad” Grade 2 sprain of my MCL, along with fracturing on my medial femoral condyle (crushed by my MCL) and lateral tibial plateau (crushed by my femur). Near Infrared light was part of my daily recovery routine. And I can say my doctors were shocked at how quickly I recovered - especially for a 48 year old. Not sure if the red light did the trick on its own but I’m a believer. YMMV.

The NIH published a supportive study on NIR and D1 college athletes. Link below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4846838/

Thank you for the link!! Interesting stuff.

I'm definitely not as young as I once was. The "rub some dirt on it" approach no longer seems effective. I think I'll try the Kineon. Report to follow.

[Dantheman]

Not sure if the red light did the trick on its own but I’m a believer.

What else did you do?

Shane Dorian has been posting for the last few months about getting a shitload of stem cell injections done in Mexico back in October. As part of the treatment he had to take over a month completely off (nothing allowed except easy walking), and that is followed by 6+ months on intensive PT. He's only recently started surfing again. That begs the question of how much are the stem cells (or RLT, etc.) actually doing above and beyond the rest and PT? Some of his posts specifically talk about the fact that he ended up this broken because he couldn't stay out of the water and allow these injuries enough time to heal in the first place.

Also, a friend that went with him and got the same stem cell treatment died a few days later (https://beachgrit.com/2023/10/shane-...dical-tragedy/). His death could have been a complete coincidence, but still, it's spooky.

I know I'm getting a little off topic and you didn't do stem cells, but a lot of experimental therapies suffer from similar biases and confounders. Hell, even conventional therapies do, as sham surgery studies have quite clearly established.

The NIH published a supportive study on NIR and D1 college athletes. Link below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4846838/

Interesting results, but:

1. No control group, no blinding.
2. All acute injuries in young high-level athletes who already have high recovery capacity.
2. The machine they used (https://www.lutronic.com/us/provider...ne/healite-ii/) is a big $$$ clinical unit that is only sold to medical clinics.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Red Light Therapy

A hinged knee brace and light motion is going to be better than red light for recovering from an MCL tear and likely a meniscus tear too.

PRP and RLT probably have placebo effects that are more likely gains from rest and PT.

It’s been nearly 30 years since the knee scope study where half the participants had actual surgical debridement and the other half had portal incisions but never had any instrument or scope inserted into the joint and the outcome for the whole cohort was the same.

Yet we’re still doing scopes for degenerative cartilage wear and tear.

A lot of it is just about the money


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Cagey]

830nm lights are fairly available on Amazon or from companies like Joovv. Joovv claims medical grade. I can’t attest to the previous studies just that I incorporated red light as part of a normal recovery program and things moved along faster than expected. No doubt there is a psychological factor that allows you do feel as if you are *doing* something to recover.

Immediately after the injury it was rest and compression, including while sleeping. PT 1x a week for 4 weeks. Swimming with a buoy between my legs to stay active for weeks 3-4. Then regular swimming. And as the pain abated I lifted with a hinged brace. Red light therapy 4x a day for 20 mins a time throughout.

7 weeks after the injury, I tried surfing with the brace but hated the feeling of it so I ditched it after two sessions and never looked back.

I did look at platelet injections but opted not too largely out of convenience and timing.

[Dantheman]

Joovv claims medical grade.

Which is easy since there is no legal definition of "Medical Grade." To be fair, they do claim conformance to several IEC and ISO standards, but for what their stuff costs that is not that impressive. Their science page has a zillion PubMed links, but only two are RCTs.

[Cagey]

I've got no dog in this fight... Just relaying my experience with red light therapy. Cheers.

[cat in january]

And I thought this was going to be about hookers and blow