First aid kits aren’t just band-aids for scraped knees and dry-split skin. They also have tensor bandages for sprained ankles and twisted knees. Yeah, I’ve recently experienced the weirdness of a twisted knee. Not a bad one. Rather painful at first, as in air-sucking pain. But it settled down because I have something most people’s First Aid kits don’t have.
I never really thought of it as being part of a First Aid kit until the twisted knee event 10 days ago. I hadn’t thought of how it had replaced my tensor bandage for sprained ankles, tenosynovitis, and other fun soft-tissue oopsies. But it heals tissues quickly, lets me walk normally or use the computer without endless pain.
Yup, photobiomodulation or low-intensity laser therapy, is its name!
Choose the correct protocol for the oopsie, strap on the array, and watch Netflix or TV while the red and infrared lights heal the offended soft tissue. Sometimes, red light alone suffices. Sometimes, I only need to do it once. But age, car crashes, compensation for my right knee being assaulted by CDs in the 2000 car crash, means that joints, muscles, and ligaments aren’t as healthy as when baby-new. A couple of weeks every other day, and it’s back to normal.
No more futile trekking to the ER, like the first time I got tenosynovitis. They diagnosed it but couldn’t treat it back then (and I bet they still don’t use photobiomodulation therapy on it). Just wrap it and take some pills for the pain. Now instead of spending days or weeks like that, I use my BioFlex Laser device once, maybe twice, and my forearm is happy again.
Now instead of having to reduce my exercise or be careful with computer work, I can continue as normal. I wonder when people calculate the upfront cost if they calculate the lost work hours, consequences of reduced exercise, and impaired play time from using old-fashioned bandages and pills?
My tensor bandage has become rather bored with never being taken out this last decade.
Bioflex Laser therapy devices should be in every First Aid kit!
