Cold laser therapy helps stimulate your body’s natural healing processes to provide long-lasting pain relief.
Cold laser therapy, more commonly referred to as photobiomodulation, has proven an effective treatment option for numerous conditions including arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, wound management and sprains.
What is the Difference Between Hot and Cold Laser Therapy?
Laser therapy is a non-invasive non-surgical approach to healing that uses light energy directly applied to the skin. The light penetrates tissue and causes chemical reactions that encourage repair of cells; this promotes healing while simultaneously decreasing pain levels and scarring, stretch marks, or wrinkles. When selecting a qualified practitioner with sufficient training and experience in laser therapy treatments it’s vital that they follow appropriate precautions in order to ensure safe and effective therapies are carried out.
Cold laser therapy uses low levels of energy to heal damaged tissues. A physician will place a hand-held flashlight device over the injured area for up to 30 minutes and use light waves stimulate cell membranes in order to increase blood flow and oxygenation to the area, providing relief from pain relief as well as decreasing swelling, inflammation, waste product exchange, as well as increase waste product elimination.
Laser therapy helps remove waste products like lactic acid and carbon dioxide, speeding the healing process and providing faster pain relief. It is often combined with massage or manual manipulation therapies in order to maximize effectiveness.
Cold laser therapy is generally safe for most individuals; however, pregnant women and those living with certain cancers may not find its use appropriate. Furthermore, as no single solution exists for all conditions or ailments, it’s wise to seek professional medical advice or the services of a trained practitioner who can recommend and administer appropriate treatment solutions tailored specifically for you.
Hot laser therapy may cause a slight burning sensation to be felt in the affected area, which is normal and an indication that your body’s natural healing processes have begun to take effect. This sensation should dissipate within 24 hours along with any decrease in pain levels.
Sometimes multiple sessions may be needed before seeing noticeable improvement; however, its long-term benefits can be long-lasting if regular maintenance laser sessions are attended on an ongoing or as-needed basis for treating chronic pain such as arthritis.
Hot laser therapy is especially useful in relieving deep muscles and deep-seated tissue pain, including osteoarthritis, back and neck discomfort and overuse injuries such as tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow. Furthermore, acute injuries like sprains or strains may also benefit from laser therapy’s deep therapeutic heat beams.
Hot laser therapy can damage tissues if exposed for too long or at an ineffective setting, and also damage the eyes if protective eyewear isn’t worn. To achieve optimal results and safety, it’s best to follow the advice of your chiropractor or qualified practitioner when scheduling treatments, such as how often and how many they recommend, cold or hot laser therapy is appropriate and even suggest other forms of treatment such as injections, surgery or medication that could supplement these programs to create the most effective solutions possible – something a laser cannot do alone.
What is the Difference Between Cold and Hot Laser Therapy?
Laser therapy is a medical process that uses light energy to stimulate cells. It can aid in healing wounds quickly, reduce pain from injuries or surgery and increase circulation to affected areas. Therapeutic lasers offer noninvasive, drug-free relief from various injuries without the risk of invasion or pain. There are two different kinds of therapeutic lasers: cold and hot. Cold laser therapy is a low-level light therapy method intended to speed up and diminish pain symptoms from muscle tissue damage, often used for chronic neck and back pain relief, tendonitis (inflammation of the tendons that connect muscles to bones), fibromyalgia and arthritis treatment.
At each treatment session, a handheld laser device will be placed over the injured area and its settings adjusted by a therapist to emit light at its proper wavelength and intensity. After several minutes have elapsed, the laser will beep to signal its completion – protective glasses must also be worn throughout this process.
When applied to damaged areas of muscle tissue, laser light bombards those tissues with photons that allow it to absorb energy and stimulate natural healing processes within cells while increasing circulation and oxygen flow within the cells, flushing away toxins in their wake. This ultimately helps speed up recovery time.
This process also helps speed up metabolism, which aids tissue repair and reduces inflammation. Furthermore, cold laser therapy activates enzymes that break down scar tissue to improve range of motion. Numerous studies support cold laser’s effectiveness for relieving pain associated with chronic conditions like fibromyalgia as well as speeding recovery from injuries or surgical procedures such as herniated discs or carpal tunnel syndrome.
Class 3 lasers, typically found in physiotherapy clinics, typically penetrate 1-2 millimeters of tissue (less than one-fourth of an inch). This allows it to pass energy deep within nerve, muscle and ligament tissue for treatment purposes including back pain, shoulder/knee injuries, arthritis carpal tunnel and sports-related issues.
Cold laser therapy is generally safe, although pregnant women, those who are epileptic, or those living with cancer are advised not to receive it as prescribed by the NHS. Furthermore, results may not always be seen, and for optimal results use should be combined with rehabilitation techniques and medications – although patients living with epilepsy must be mindful as cold laser therapy could trigger seizures in some instances.
