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Low Level Laser Therapy offers help against pain

If you were to research light therapy and how it works, you’d probably find some technical description including difficult words like “mitochondria” and “cell proliferation.”

If you were to talk to people who have received light therapy, you’d hear understandable words like “amazing” and “great progress.” Those patients don’t seem to care how it works, they just know that it does.

Low Level Laser Therapy, or light therapy, has been offered at the New Ulm Medical Center for about a year and a half, said Eileen Campbell, one of the physical therapists who uses this method in her treatments. Light therapy is also used by occupational therapists and athletic trainers at the medical center.

Light therapy is most effective for various soft-tissue injuries, pain and inflammatory conditions, Campbell said.

“People have gone out in the sunlight to feel better forever. But, now researchers have discovered that there are certain wavelengths of light – specifically infrared – that can influence the cellular level of the body,” Campbell said.

Put simply, this specific wave length of light influences the cells to speed up certain physiological responses such as increased blood flow and improved tissue healing.

The therapy is administered with a light probe that is held over the patient’s skin in the affected area. The patient might feel some warmth or tingling with the treatment, but mostly they just feel better. The length of treatment depends on the number of joules (or unit of energy) used, which is determined by a set of protocols that have been developed over the twenty or so years that this type of therapy has been used around the world. The therapy is only recently catching on in the United States. The protocols are based on the site, the deepness of the tissue, and how many layers of tissue there might be.

“The therapy is not clear cut – we don’t have a ‘cook book.’ As therapists, we use the protocols as guidelines, then adapt according to our patient’s response,” Campbell said. “But, this does speed up the recovery. We’ve had patients who have tried other things and then we try the light therapy and we see an improved, increased rate of response to treatment.”

Light therapy is almost always used in conjunction with exercise, soft tissue massage and other modalities such as electrical stimulation or ultrasound. “It is definitely not something that is used alone. It is one tool that we can use in a treatment,” Campbell said.

It is a tool that is incredibly effective, according to patients.

Cathy Weinkauf had been rushed to the Emergency Department with pain in her chest one day in August 2005. A year after a successful bypass surgery in 2000, she had begun experiencing these pains. “I knew it wasn’t my heart again,” Weinkauf said. “It was a different kind of pain. I also have fibromyalgia and I thought it might be that.”

She lived with that pain for four years until it became so unbearable one day that it necessitated the trip to the ED. “They found that the muscle endings where they had opened my chest for the bypass surgery were inflamed,” Weinkauf explained. She was referred to Campbell for treatment and at the time the pain was so great, she said, that Campbell could not even touch the affected area.

Weinkauf received light therapy twice a week, along with gentle massage and exercises to stretch the muscles. Six weeks later, the pain was gone. “I just couldn’t get over what it did for me,” Weinkauf said. “I was surprised that it worked so quickly, too.”

The speed and effectiveness with which light therapy works is what makes it so desirable because that translates into fewer visits for patients, Campbell said. “It is used often in athletic training and it’s perfect for athletes – they always want to get back into action as quickly as possible.”

It is also used very effectively in healing wounds and is being used more often in treating lymphedema patients. “One area we’ve had good response is plantar fasciitis (foot pain) – which is notoriously difficult to treat,” Campbell said. Tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow is another common diagnosis being treated with light therapy.

Patient Jerry Christiansen was limping with Achilles tendonitis in his heel when he began light therapy, along with ultrasound and therapeutic exercises. Three weeks later, the pain was greatly reduced. At the same time, he also got treatment and relief for the tendonitis in his elbow.

“I have had that pain for years but I just figured I had to live with it,” Christiansen said.

Although Christiansen’s story of rapid relief for his pain is common, it is not a miracle cure for all conditions, Campbell said. Physical therapy can often involve trial of many different treatment options before the right combination is found for each patient.

The therapists are enthusiastic about using light therapy for many conditions.

“In fact, we now ‘fight’ over the machine because it is so popular among the physical therapists, the occupational therapists and the athletic trainers,” Campbell said.

It’s a fight in which the patient comes out the winner in the end.

New Ulm Medical Center
1324 Fifth St. N.
New Ulm, MN 56073
507-233-1000
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First published: 09/18/2006
Last updated: 09/18/2006

Reviewed by: Eileen Campbell, PT (physical therapist)