Six years ago I decided to learn more about LED Light Therapy by becoming certified in Equine Photopuncture & Light Therapy. I was going to make a business by working on other people’s animals with LED Light. I was very passionate it. I was blown away by all the possibilities this modality had! The number one question I got asked was if it worked on humans too. So I knew I had to get certified on the human side of LED Light Therapy. The answer was yes. LED Light worked for humans too. It could support the immune system, assist the body to heal wounds faster, reduce pain and inflammation, increase circulation, help the body get into a restful state, etc. All from just putting Light on the body!
I couldn’t believe more people weren’t using LED Light in hospitals, veterinarian offices, burn clinics, veteran affairs, and anywhere else people went to alleviate their aches and pains. Maybe it seemed too good to be true, just placing Light on the body. After all, they hadn’t seen the transformations I did with the horses. So I had to help people understand that Light is a nutrient, it energizes our cells. Just as we need water, we need Light. It can’t just be any form of Light, of course. We need the same natural and beneficial wavelengths the sun provides. Wrapping yourself up in Christmas Lights will not produce the same affect. Christmas Lights do not begin the process of Photobiomodulation within the body. Therapeutic Light does.
That was one of my obstacles in the industry six years ago. We didn’t have a word for it. The scientific word, Photobiomodulation, has only been in circulation fora few years now. At the time, people had an understanding of lasers and low level laser therapy. So I had to use that lingo as my foundation to explain what I was doing.
As I learned more about Light, I also learned about all the studies that were just coming out or would be out in the next 3-5 years. In 2014 there were a few hundred studies on pubmed.gov that spoke to the benefits of Light and I would share that information with my clients, however, it was usually very scientific and difficult to read if you weren’t a medical professional. Now if I do a search in pubmed there are 101,883 studies that come up. Plus, there are many easy to read articles supporting the benefits of Light in circulation!
Another wonderful change in the past six years has been the ease of being able to share on social media and internet platforms. As a millennial, I was stumped as to why people were not spreading the light (pun intended) about Light Therapy on social media. I grew up along side the internet. As a college student, I had Facebook in 2005. Surely, other people I’d been meeting at conferences and in the classroom would be putting their findings online and on social media. Yet they weren’t. They didn’t see it as a place to share and talk about Light Therapy. What I discovered is that I had to be patient and wait for others to catch up to the idea. Now there are all kinds of social media groups to join about Light. Social media platforms like Facebook are encouraging joining groups and expanding knowledge from each other within the groups. There are wonderful discussions about laser vs. LED, why use targeted light therapy (Photopuncture or Pad based systems) or panels, or how to find the best Light Therapy specifications for your needs. If you Google “Photobiomodulation” today, multiple pages of results come up. It’s very exciting!
I didn’t realize that six years ago I was on the cusp of an up and coming modality. I thought all the information would be “out there”. Instead, I have been able to be a part of getting the information “out there”, assisting others find and share. PTI has an ever expanding library of articles and studies (growing) on our website, we host a few Facebook groups where people can ask questions and get assistance, we have online and live certification classes for those who want to add Light Therapy to their current practice or begin a Light Therapist business, we host a webinar called “Office Hours” every Thursday where we discuss an aspect of Light Therapy and then invite others to ask questions, share obstacles, and learn from one another. The community is growing. Which is a reflection that the industry is growing.
Though I wish I had all the online resources back when I started in the industry, I can look back now and see how far it has come. I can also see that it’s only going to continue to grow. According to GlobalNewswire.com “Global Light Therapy Market is poised to surpass USD 1 billion by 2025″! Which means many more people and animals will experience pain relief from Light very soon.
Join us Thursdays for “Office Hours”, a live webinar about Light Therapy http://bit.ly/join-office-hours
