SUBJECTIVE
When I was little, Star Wars ushered in this whole science fiction thing for me. Star Wars was it! I couldn’t get enough. Yeah, I had little diversions here and there: I dabbled in Buck Rogers, I had a few Micronaunts, a friend of mine had some neat Star Trek toys, but I always stayed true to my Star Wars toys. I had (and still do –they’re in my office at the clinic) almost all of the figures. As best I remember there are about 3-4 that I don’t have. I’ve made a contact in the last year of someone who inherited a collection of Star Wars figures through a divorce. She’s wanting me to help her unload them and told me I had first dibs on the figures I wanted. Anyway, I loved the “little men” as my mother called them, and I also loved the role-play toys as well. I had a light saber, I had a copy of Han Solo’s gun.
Well, 30 years later, I have a real laser gun at the clinic.
OBJECTIVE
I’d resisted buying the laser for almost 6 years. The local rep who sold us most of our equipment had been harping on this thing for a long time. At the time I had other equipment that I wanted. The business was just taking off. Another investment just wasn’t what I was wanting at the time. Well last month, Patrick (the rep) finally convinced me to try this thing out. He brought us lunch, set up the machine, and let us play with it. He “inserviced” us on uses of the laser: shoulder impingement, headaches, plantar fasciitis, muscle spasm, fibromyalgia, and pain from shingles. Shingles? Shingles!
Some of you know this but on occasion I have a minor bout with shingles here and there. That’s a story for another day. But relating to this story, I was currently having an issue in my left forearm.
So I self treated.
During the inservice.
Three 30 second zaps.
Holy cow.
The pain was gone in 30 minutes and hasn’t been back since.
Needless to say, we bought the machine and have used it on just about everything that walks in the door. Right now we may be overusing it because we’re assessing what conditions it’s effective on and which ones it is not. The only thing I’ve seen truly that it is a no-go on is hip bursitis. At least on the 2 clients with which we used it, there was little change.
ASSESSMENT:
Low level laser therapy sends energy through the skin to about 1 ½ to 2 inches deep. This is a deeper heating mechanism than any other physical therapy modality with which I’ve worked. The laser has 4 diodes on it that produce a red light that penetrates truly down into the muscle, ligament, nerve, or bone. In damaged tissue, it brings blood to the area and stimulates the blood’s healing properties in that area. It’s effects on wounds are incredible. We’re using it on surgical incisions –such as total knee incisions– and it speeds them along nicely. I’ve witnessed it reduce a hard as a rock spasm in a woman’s neck into soft, normal muscle. I’ve got another woman who’d been planning and canceled (it was scheduled for this week) a surgical procedure for plantar fasciitis because the Laser had helped her. We’re even using it helping to increase shoulder and knee range of motion after surgery by teaming the treatment with stretching and hand’s on treatment. The main thing that the FDA approved it for was carpal tunnel syndrome. We just haven’t had a carpal tunnel client walk in the door in the last month. But I’m itchin’ to try.
PLAN
All that being said, low level laser therapy is not a cure all. There is no magic bullet. The laser is a tool that, when used along with manual therapy and exercise, helps speed along healing and rehabilitation. I will tell you this: I’ve never been this excited about a modality we use in the clinic. It has virtually no contra-indications. It’s painless. You might feel a little heat with it but that’ all. The effects aren’t immediate (except with that muscle spasm). It usually takes 3-4 treatments for the laser to do what it needs to do (although my Shingles treatment was). This thing works.
And I’ve got my own laser gun.



