A Guide to Cold Laser Treatment

For most patients this type of treatment will be completely new. They will, most likely, want to know much about it before you use it to treat. You might hear something like “how can light treat my problem?”, “is it safe to use?” or “will is hurt?”. Whatever you hear from your patients it is important to have an informative but concise explanation of what you are using to treat them and how it can help. I tell my patients that laser light has been used safely for 30-40 years but is only ‘recently’ popular; especially with advanced research and the availability of portable (affordable) equipment. The light is ‘cold’ in that it will not burn human tissue at the settings and treatment times used; and it is not known to cause or worsen cancer. It will not hurt but there may be a slight tingling sensation during treatment. Many patients know that sunlight can ‘produce’ vitamin D in the body and certainly can result in a tan. What they might not know is that this is a result of light penetrating the skin and activating a chemical mechanism (photobiostimulation) to produce a result. You are not baking the skin to a golden brown but causing a photochemical reaction! Cold laser light is ‘tuned’ so that it can penetrate to a level necessary to activate cellular mechanisms of anti-inflammation and pain control. When the ‘target’ cells receive the proper photobiostimulation, cellular mechanisms are activated and chemical compounds are formed assisting in that control. Even if cells closest to the area of concern are not directly treated there is a proximity effect. Cells closer to the skin surface can affect others that are deeper and further away; effectively, chemically transferring the treatment to the target area. Typically this explanation is more than enough to satisfy my patients’ concerns.