Low-power laser therapy for home / self use

[Guest guest]

Hi Ann, & All,

 

Some colleagues appear to disapprove of members of the public buying and

using low-power lasers if they wish to do so.

 

I do not see the logic in that disapproval. If used properly, LLLT is very safe

and free of adverse effects. The public can buy and use many other

electromagnetic therapy devices (TENS instruments, vibrators, massagers,

infrared therapy devices, magnets, etc), so why should " we " try to prevent

them from using LLLT if they wish?

 

Ann wrote:

> I would think laser, that can go through walls ...

 

As used in biostimulation / acupuncture therapy, cold (low-power) lasers

have low mean output power (MOP), usually in the range 5-500 mW.

 

As light from a standard light-bulb (say 40-100 W) will not pass through

walls, I doubt very much if the much lower power from cold lasers can do so

either.

 

> ...[laser] is much more powerful than pressing a point (e.g. massage -

> also most of them know more about energy movement in the body).

 

I know of no published paper that compared low-power laser versus

acupressure in a controlled trial.

 

A Medline search for the profile: (controlled-trial AND (acupressure OR

" pressure on acupoints " OR " acupoint pressure " OR tuina OR shiatsu))

indicates that acupressure cen be an effective therapy for some conditions.

See the abstracts at http://tinyurl.com/3bstfm

 

Applied to acupoints, cold laser, especially at higher MOPs (100-500mW),

also has therapeutic effects in many conditions. My experience with a 30mW

IR laser [ http://users.med.auth.gr/~karanik/english/vet/laser1.htm ]

confirmed many years ago that laser therapy gave similar clinical success to

acupuncture in humans and dogs, but laser success in horses was circa

10% points lower than acupuncture success in horses.

 

I attributed that to the acupoints that I used in horses probably were much

deeper from the skin surface than similar acupoints in humans or dogs, i.e.

that the MOP of my laser was not high enough to fully activate the deeper

acupoints in horses, or that I did not irradiate the horse points for a long

enough time to activate them fully.

 

There are very few publications on Medline that compared directly the

efficacy of low-level laser versus acupressure. For example the profile,

(controlled-trial AND (lasers OR laser OR LLLT) AND (acupressure OR

" pressure on acupoints " OR " acupoint pressure " OR tuina OR shiatsu)) has

only 4 hits on Medline. See: http://tinyurl.com/34ysx8

 

Unfortunately, none of those papers compared LLLT with acupressure

directly, so it is not possible to say (from those papers) if there are any

significant difference between the outcomes of laser therapy versus

acupressure therapy.

 

My gut feeling is that properly applied acupressure probably IS as good as

low-power laser in therapy in humans.

 

Do any of you have good evidence for or against that opinion?

 

Best regards,