From the information they publish, the Light Relief system you purchased is nothing like the LED Technologies system, in both power or wavelength. Light Relief is broad spectrum infrared. It is basically old school. 450-495 nm, 620-750 nm, 750-1000 nm. (4 blue, 31 red and 24 infrared)
The valuable wave length is near infrared.

The 848 nm wavelength is targeted by the latest technology.

The Light Relief system is just a low power penetrating heat system using broad spectrum heat.. The laser system sounds like it was a higher power deep heat system. My chiro used a system like than on my back in the early 90's.

The technology of targeting the wavelength has greatly improved the results. It appears Dr Kahn started with a broader spectrum wavelength and may now be more targeted. He alludes to a dual function, short term and longer term response. His information says his LED systems alternate wavelengths. The Laser diode probes do only one wavelength. It is frustrating to understand these systems with limited technical specifications. Lots of selling the sizzle. Not much real data.

The LED Technologies system is not to be used for more than 14 minutes twice a day. The near infrared systems at the targeted 848 nm, even Laser Diode, trigger the mytochondria for cell growth and repair. Results do not manifest for a week or two after many repeated treatments. It has 56 848 nm LEDs and 4 red LEDs. If you want a different wavelength for the other benefits, it requires a separate LED emmitting head.

The low level laser therapy systems used by local chiros and PTs provide quick warmth and pain relief. They use obvious visible red light, not the invisible near infrared. That would not be the same as the slow mitrochondria based improvements of near infrared wavelengths.

I'd be interested if Laupala can get some technical specs of the system they use. Wavelength, power, etc.

Mark,
I'll ask for more details at some point and let everyone know. I agree that kind of desensitization training could be helpful, but it honestly sounds scary. In theory I get that small head bumps aren't that big of a deal, but my experience has suggested otherwise. I made a thread about the ceiling head bump noted in my signature over a year ago, asking about the significance of these, and you said (not calling you out here or anything, just trying to illustrate my experience) that it wasn't anything to worry about, but that bump preceded a major worsening, and I haven't felt as good as I did before that since then.

Another instance was falling while xc skiing. I didn't hit my head, and didn't really have that great a startle response because I was surrounded by kids I was coaching and didn't want to freak out in front of them. But, once I got home, I started to feel worse, which precipitated anxiety. It's usually an increase in symptoms that causes anxiety in my experience, not necessarily the other way around (although I get that these can be difficult to distinguish).

Further, I've had anxiety spikes unrelated to head stuff (relationship issues) that do cause an increase in symptoms, but only very temporarily, whereas head bumps of relative significance cause much longer lasting setbacks. So, it's hard for me to rationalize that it's just anxiety when other instances of just anxiety don't produce the same effect as a head bump + anxiety.

I get that this is really complicated and all kinds of other factors could be at play, but given my experience it's just really hard to fully believe that these head bumps aren't doing some kind of damage, whether to my brain or skull or nerves or whatever, that will result in a setback. I know I'd be better off without this belief, but part of me just simply thinks it's true, and I have a hard time shaking things that I think are true.

You may have trained your system to respond to bumps/contacts. You'd be surprised how the cascade of brain chemistry can snowball quickly. It's a Pavlov's dog kind of response. If a dog can be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, any sensory stimulation can cause a reaction without a sound factual basis for the reaction. Early on, it may have been anxiety induced but with enough reactions, your body can learn to respond even when there is not a valid reason or anxiety. As an evolutionist, you should have learned about conditioned responses. But, maybe that is limited to animals, not plants.

So, deconditioning has great value.

FYI, It only takes 3 repetitions to condition a reaction. It take 7 breaks from the reaction to start to break the conditioning.

Maybe your EMDR training needs to focus on these head contact issues.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying your reactions are not real. They are very real. That is what makes them so difficult. But, you can condition train yourself out of the response.

Getting burned by a hot object becomes a conditioned response. The next time, the brain connects the pain to the sense of heat and retracts.

Your brain senses a contact and a perceived related danger and reacts as if there was an injury. It goes into a protect mode with the related symptoms.

I don't think you are going to get much better until you can stop this cycle. Empirical evidence shows this to be the case. A local brain injury PT sees this as a major factor that effects recovery. He told us the literature shows this to be true.

The simple physics of impact forces show these contacts to be of no measurable or calculateable value.

Hi Laupala. How has your laser treatment been going this last week? Any improvements?

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It has been a rough week and a half or so. I calmed down a bit from the head bump on my second treatment, but continued to feel worse than when I arrived, and this became especially exacerbated towards the end. The doctors decided that I was likely being treated too intensely (I had 9 treatments over the course of 11 days). Normally I guess they just treat patients on an every-other day basis, but make exceptions for out-of-towners.

In general I feel like my threshold for overstimulation has gone way down (i.e. I get overstimulated much more easily, like I probably shouldn't be writing this as the amount of time on the computer it's taking is exacerbating symptoms), anxiety way up (not necessarily from the treatments...), and the past couple days I've felt slightly nauseated, which is a totally new symptoms to me, probably unrelated, but who knows.

So, I came home early yesterday, with a rental unit that I can treat myself with at my own pace, once I "stabilize" after taking a bit of a break. I do think the treatments have helped with a longtime hamstring injury I have, so I rented it primarily for that, and we'll see if a slower schedule on the neck/head works. I wish I would've known this was possible/probably a better path for me from the get go, so in that sense i'm disappointed with Dr. Kahn and co., but I guess they wanted to monitor me closely while I was starting out. He says this kind of reaction is rare, but he has seen it before in a handful of patients, particularly 17-25 yr old males for whatever reason.

On my way home from Toronto I passed through my NUCCA chiro and saw her, figuring I'd save the trip since I was passing through. It's about 90 minutes from me, but I only go once every few months now since I've been "holding my adjustment" for a year. I saw her in December, wanting to be sure that I was in alignment before starting the laser treatment, and I was. Well, turns out I was out of alignment for the first time in a year, could have been the bump (it was right above C-1), or something else.

I was really feeling pretty crummy yesterday with the driving, and was seriously considering getting a hotel along the way, but actually felt better, and good enough to finish the drive after the adjustment. That was new to me, as in the past I've not experienced much after adjustments, making me think it was pretty much useless. Today I'm feeling fairly bad again, which is expected I guess. I'll likely wait till I calm down to see if trying the lasers works again - perhaps I felt so bad while in Toronto because I was out of alignment - who knows... my priority now is resting up to get back to feeling "reasonable" for the start of the semester.