My stroke has left my left arm, hand and knee severely restricted due to spasticity. I am trying to help my brain rewire itself and it has been suggested that the red light treatment may help. Has anyone any experience of using it or know anyone who has? Is it worth pursuing? Thanks.
Margaret
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Hi, can’t say I’ve heard of red light therapy but I’m sure someone on here will be able to help. My left side was paralysed following a hemorrhagic stroke 6 years ago. I will be watching the replies carefully.
Good luck, hope you get xome useful replies soon.
Regards Sue
Yes I use it daily. That said however I have been using it to help with brain fog and fatigue primarily as have been left with spasticity in my left thigh only. I do find the red light therapy relaxing and it helps me sleep but as to the spasticity I’m not sure. To be honest the therapies that helps my thigh the most is exercise and the TENS machine that incorporates EMS (muscle stimulator) I use it regularly as it also helps with pain. I have a very good physio who makes sure I’m not doing myself more harm than good.
Can anybody provide some good references to say what this red light therapy is in the stroke warrior context? How it helps?
I get a few sponsored links to the therapy when I search, mostly theyre about skin improvement.
I guess being red = the wavelength, means a warming light, so a heat lamp, why not just a blanket or hot bottle then.
I get some slightly more neutral? After the sponsored - Such as Red Light Therapy: Benefits, Side Effects & Uses but they still aren’t suggesting skin related
how you’d use it in a stroke context
I also found photo dynamic therapy but that seems entirely different
As I said previously, I searched primarily for help with fatigue, brain fog rather than anything else, so I can’t link Red light therapy directly to stroke. Does that need to be the case ?
I used red light therapy on my mother. I did it for about 2 months, and consistently. I did not see any improvements in her with it. Trust me - if there had been, I’d be now the first to share it with you all. I had her do hydrogen therapy, too, but it did nothing, either. She did it for about 6 weeks or so, and made my life miserable in the process (very difficult to get to do anything). I wasted a lot of money. I loved my mother dearly, but getting her to do anything she didn’t want to do was a nightmare. It wasn’t all her fault, as the stroke made her too mentally ill.
What I am saying: it didn’t work for my mother, but she was almost fully physically recovered from her stroke when I was using them. I did these therapies exclusively to improve her mental and emotional health. That said, these therapies may work for physical issues after a stroke. I don’t know.
I’m all for alternative therapies. You just have to find those that actually work.
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