Muscles, Arthritis, and Light Therapy

Car crash. Whiplash. Shoulder strains and sprains. I talk about concussion but rarely the injuries outside the brain. Or the inherited arthritis invading my fingers, the essentials of my craft. But I’m writing now because I finally had to bite the bullet to replace my aging home low-intensity laser therapy unit (LILT), and it made me pay attention to my muscles and my knuckles.

As I wrote in the first edition Concussion Is Brain Injury, car crashes exert phenomenal forces on the human body, the impacts flinging the person and their brain back and forth, back and forth. Each fling pushes the body against the seatbelt, the part not firmly held against the seat continuing its forward momentum. It’s so fast, you don’t know which part of you is going where. You don’t know that perhaps the glove box flew open or maybe unsecured CDs or books or tapes, whatever it is you store under the dashboard, shot at your knees — not until you see them at your feet. I didn’t feel anything physically at the time, not that I recall. I was kind of in a strange place of emotions flooding on then shutting down. But, as an Italian man once told me after my first car crash in 1991, you’ll feel it by the end of the day. It’s shocking how whiplash doesn’t make itself felt until, out of the blue, a migraine rises up out of your neck and sinks its claws into your head.

I thought I knew what to do. Follow the paramedic instructions of heat on, heat off, then on and rest. Go to the physiotherapist in the morning, or as quick as one can, as well as to the GP for X-rays and the acupuncturist. What no one told me then, and I understand is still not well known outside of elite athlete circles, is that low-intensity laser therapy (LILT) can heal injuries. If I had been sent immediately to a clinic that uses LILT, I would’ve been saved from chronic inflammation and reduced function. I would’ve been rescued from the immense pain that bedevilled my sleep — what side do I sleep on that won’t stuff my head and body with pain from my shoulder?! — made handshaking an act of teeth-gritting endurance, weakened my arms and hands, and gave me migraines for years and years and years.

I write in my book Concussion Is Brain Injury: Treating the Neurons and Me about how I found out about LILT 13 years after my injuries. Despite the delay in receiving this neurostimulation therapy, I underwent significant improvement, so significant, it blew away my certified athletic therapist. Up until I began LILT, he had been hinting at my lack of progress being due to me not doing my exercises. I was kind of incensed. I was doing them! It wasn’t my fault my body refused to respond to therapy, stayed stiff with my right-side muscle tone like wood compared to my left side. I was vindicated after a few LILT treatments. He was able to move my neck, shoulders, body extensively — dramatically further than he’d ever been able to before. And he’d always been able to manipulate them into more motion than I ever had. I zipped up the improvement ladder so quickly, I found myself discharged from physiotherapy in no time.

LILT can be used immediately or very soon after an injury. When I sprain or strain a muscle acutely, it doesn’t take many sessions of my home unit, like one or two, maybe three or so, for that strain to be fully fixed. I talked to a fellow who’d been in a car crash, had suffered whiplash, had used LILT daily for 2 weeks, and was fine after that. However, because my injuries had been allowed to become chronic, I need a home unit as I need treatments permanently. A home unit is cheaper and easier than hoofing it to the clinic regularly. And it heightens my functionality so much that walking is easy and writing is regularly doable, physically speaking.

LILT has done far more for me than simply walking easier and farther, moving with much less stiffness, regaining flexibility (a continuing process); it’s also improved my HRV and kept my osteoarthritis under control.

When I first spotted osteoarthritis bulging a knuckle, I swore a blue streak then showed my worry to my acupuncturist. I thought I was headed for the bent fingers and loss of sensory acuteness my older relatives had. That would make typing and writing difficult. My acupuncturist used electricity on that errant knuckle. She said she would apply it until I could feel the current. She repeated that in subsequent appointments, but I don’t recall how many times. It wasn’t many because soon after that she discharged me, for gamma brain biofeedback had made acupuncture extraneous. That knuckle has not flared up again since then. When much later, osteoarthritis found its way into a knuckle on my right hand, I didn’t know what to do.

“Laser Technology uses superluminous and laser diodes to treat diseased or traumatized tissue with photons. These particles of energy are selectively absorbed by the cell membrane and intracellular molecules, initiating a cascade of complex physiological reactions, leading to the restoration of normal cell structure and function.”

BioFlex Laser https://bioflexlaser.com/science

Enter LILT. I have many, many issues to deal with so my hands were not high on the doctor’s list as he whittled his way down it. But I prevailed eventually. I discovered that, although not as permanently curing as my acupuncturist’s direct electrical application had been, it stops for quite some time the flare up, the increasing heat, the stiffening, the distortion. Unfortunately, neither the electricity nor the photons of LILT reverse the distorted joints, but I know it’s worked when I can press down on the finger, when the joint moves as if healthy, and I feel no resistance, pain, or inflammation.

One lucky winner will receive a personal BioFlex P120 device free at the end of the contest in 3 weeks. This is an incredible giveaway worth $2500!!

I’m also pleased to provide my readers with 10% off a personal home device for the next 5 weeks, using my exclusive affiliate promo code jeejeebhoyflex10 at checkout. Purchases using this affiliate code will help me pay for my brain injury website expenses. It’s a win-win for you and me.

I’m creating a central hub for brain injury for the public and health care professionals alike. My brain injury website will empower people with brain injury. It will encompass education, appropriate diagnostics, effective treatments, support information, what to look for in clinics, and the future. It’s my way to gather together all the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired, add further research, and share it all in a usable, informative way to anyone and everyone. There will be no ads on it, and it’s web accessible. And so I’m hoping to kickstart the funding through this short promo using code jeejeebhoyflex10 then fund it through book and wearable art sales, Patreon, and continuing to write for Psychology Today. Look for the website’s soft launch in the coming weeks!