Cold Laser Therapy for Back Pain

Although other uses of cold laser therapy are still officially considered experimental, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cold laser therapy, also called soft therapy and low level laser therapy (LLLT), as an effective method for temporary pain relief. Chiropractors all over the United States, such as Dr. John Kimmel, who testified for the ABC Denver article, "Cold Laser Therapy May Be Effective Against Pain," are beginning to use cold laser therapy to treat back pain, which is suffered by millions of Americans.

Be Certain You Qualify for Cold Laser Therapy

• Before deciding to undergo cold laser therapy treatment, a diagnosis of the condition must confirm that the issue is back pain from a neuro-muscoskeletal condition caused by aging, injury or genetics, and that there is no condition that should not be treated by cold laser therapy. For instance, if the back has unidentifiable visible lesions on the skin, a doctor must first confirm that these lesions are not cancerous before the patient can undergo laser therapy. Effects of laser therapy on cancerous lesions are still unknown. Pregnant women are also not good candidates for cold laser therapy for this same reason; the effects on unborn children are unknown, as well. Although, according to the FDA, the cold laser treatment is safe and has no known side effects, since the cold therapy involves low-energy beams and very low absorption rates that can't harm the skin tissue (especially because of the complete absence of heat), the depth of tissue penetration still indicates that this technology could affect certain health conditions, such as cancer and pregnancy, in ways that are still unknown.

Identify Pain and Cause

• Cold laser therapy has various protocols for different conditions, and it is important that the treatment provider know the exact back location, cause, degree and frequency of back pain, so that the appropriate protocol can be selected for optimum performance. Understanding the exact condition causing the back pain can also indicate how many treatments will be needed for effectiveness, and how frequent the treatment sessions should be.

  The low-energy laser pulses can be adjusted to penetrate more deeply and more aggressively into the skin tissue, depending on the condition and goals of treatment. The light energy, which an either be delivered by a large device that emits multiple laser panels at once, or a handheld device for smaller target back areas, will pass through the skin layers to reach the cells and tissue causing the pain and inflammation. The light energy activates the natural healing process of the cells, which reduces pain, increases blood flow and stimulates repair of the tissue.

Be Persistent and Consistent with Treatment Sessions

• Cold laser therapy requires many treatments for optimal pain relief. Spine-Health.com reports that it can take anywhere from eight to 30 cold therapy sessions for the treatment to be fully effective, and some patients find it necessary to undergo treatment two to four times per week. Fortunately, this type of laser therapy has no side effects, and offers painless procedures, so "over-treatment" isn't possible, there is no recovery time and patients use the time to read and/or simply relax during the half-hour treatment. While it takes multiple treatments to maintain results of a chronic back pain condition, the Synergy Therapeutic Group in Illinois reports that 75 to 80 percent of cold laser-treated patients experience an improvement in their painful condition immediately after one treatment.