Lasers in medical treatment

On friday I was retold a story about a guy who "healed" his wound with the use of the laser from a laser level, after being told about laser-treatment at the hospital.
Now this I call BS, but I see that there's more and more advertising on laser-treatment for skin, eyes, pain, inflammation, wrinkles, as accupuncture etc. Some of this done by doctors and physiotherapists, but a lot is done by people with no health-related education.

I know that laser-surgery is real, but I think that a lot of the other stuff is just myth-based, catering to the crowd who's willing to do anything to get rid of wrinkles or is into alternative medicine. Am I wrong in believing this?
I checked the net and found WALT and LaserWorld, but I find it difficult to separate the "I want to believe"-crowd from the medical science-crowd.
Anyone who can give me a short rundown so that I have something to say the next time someone tells me a "healed by lasers"-story?

You can just say that you want proof ... in form of a double-blind controlled multi-center study following evidence-based criteria ... and the discussion will end before it even started.
bernhard

What Bernhard said.

If wounds were healed by light then all of our scars would disappear as soon as we stepped into sunshine.

So are you trying to say that a laser is just a light?

I've heard it explained that a laser can be used like a needle in accupuncture/accupressure. And there are controlled studies for the usefulness of that.

I agree with berhnard but must also say 'There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.'

Just because you can burn holes with it won't make it a healing device.

I am not saying that nothing in this direction is possible, I just want proof, that is all, and that is the minimum required for a serious healer ... proof for his methods, one way or another.
This becomes even more important with the modern tendencies to convert a health system into a capitalistic money market (you have done it in the USA, we are in the process of converting right now), where a quick buck is more importan than the truth and honesty.

bernhard

So, aside of using lasers to cut/burn in medical treatment it's "I want to believe" all the way?

I'm perfectly willing to believe there's a "nisse"(A Norwegian equivalent of the Irish leprechaun) living in my apartment that hides my stuff so I can't find it, but when it comes to medicine I don't like the "alternative" stuff.

I know that faith can be a big factor in healing, as many medical studies on the placebo-effect has shown us, but I (personally) can't get any effect out of a treatment that I don't believe in in the first place...

pietruck said:

So are you trying to say that a laser is just a light?

I've heard it explained that a laser can be used like a needle in accupuncture/accupressure. And there are controlled studies for the usefulness of that.

I agree with berhnard but must also say 'There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.'

Click to expand...

No, it's not just a light - it's a source of intensely focused heat also.
Lasers are used for zapping tattoos and port wine stains as well as the obvious laser scalpel applications, but all of the above involve cutting and vaporizing. I'm not sure how that could be called 'healing,' other than perhaps healing the emotional scars left by a bad tattoo.

As for the accupuncture claim, I don't see how a highly collimated beam of light can produce the same effect as pressure without causing tissue damage from heat.

I have had my eye sight returned from laser surgery.

Well, technically not 'returned' as I wasn't blind as such but I had to wear glasses 24/7 and couldn't see well without them.

Well.... not any more!!

I had a green laser zap both my eyes and each one (zapped seperately) took about 4 to 5 days to heal and stop feeling like there's a lot of sand in my eye.

After that, sight settled down to 20/20 within 4 weeks.

I cannot BEGIN to tell you how good it is. To be free of glasses, to be able to wear my own non prescription sun glasses outside without either flip-up lenses or huge blow-fly glasses to hide my prescription ones underneath.

I can read stuff from a long way away, I am constantly having long distance reading competitions with my friends now and sport (basketball and volleyball) are much more fun and safe now I don't have to wear glasses while playing.

Anyhoo, it was world first technology here in Perth - some new development using a much faster and more accurate tracking method of the laser across your eye.

Anyone wanting more info I'll be happy to dig up the specifics for you.

Lasers are used routinely in refraction modification surgery as most of us are aware (Lasik et. al.). They are also used in retinal surgery and on genital warts fairly frequently.

As far as actually promoting healing, what Kiessling said! In 1988, when I was an ER doc, I was approached by this fellow who was a "friend of a friend" about an opportunity to invest in a venture using a new Fujinon medical YAG infrared laser to treat patients with arthritis. To try to make the sale, the guy picked me up in a Rolls Royce (rented?) and took me to a high rise building in downtown Dallas where they had rented office space and had one laser installed and operating. My role would have been to kick in a bunch of money (i.e. take out a giant loan) to buy the laser units, and then to market it to my fellow physicians to get them to send their patients for laser treatments. It was to be a joint venture, in equal partnership with this guy whose contribution to the venture was to be some used medical equipment of inflated value but doubtful age and usefullness . Beginning to sound fishy? I thought so. He pulled out some copies of studies done showing the salutary effect of the YAG laser on cell growth and arthritis symptoms, but they were from questionable sources with small samples. He took me to visit a famous burn researcher (he really was) but the researcher had no insight into the laser part of the venture and was only interested in using the venture to sell his nutritonal supplement shakes :ironic:. In any event, it sounded too much like selling snake oil to me, and I declined to participate - to my everlasting relief:sleepy:. I've never since heard of YAG lasers being successfully used in the manner being promoted, so it looks like it was the right decision, and I was probably being scammed. At least they wasted a fair amount of money and time trying so suck me in :devil:.

I'd be tempted to call Mythbusters from the Discovery Channel and let them take a crack at it.

There is a HUGE difference between laser surgery and just shining a laser on yourself.

Laser corrective eye surgery uses the laser to burn off parts of your lens to reshape it to focus better! They aren't just shining the light in there and magically healing something. Laser eye surgery to fix a detached retina uses the laser to create scar tissue to tack the remaining retina tissue back against the back of the eye where it will stop falling off and then be in the focal plane again. They aren't just shining the light in there and letting some miracle happen.

Laser skin resurfacing burns off the top couple of layers of skin letting new skin grow back in place of it that looks, at least for a while, pinker and less winkled and any surface blemishes that where in it can be made to go away, or at least get better at the same time. I'd imagine there is a limit to the number of times you can do this... There has got to be some video of this on the web somewhere, I've seen it on TV it's rather gruesome actually you can watch the laser scan a portion of skin burning and making smoke! They aren't just shining the laser at your skin and waiting for some miracle to happen.

Laser removal of tatoos or birthmarks has to do with using a wavelength of light, or a focus of the laser to concentrate the heat deeper in the skin to denature or burn the ink or affected tissue without burning the top layers. They aren't just shining any old handy light source at it and hoping your immune system will notice and do something about it.

The confusion here is the combination of real laser medicine and reports that certain wavelengths of long IR leds can improve healing. Mix the two together in someone's head without any understanding of it and they will try anything

Your buddies laser level doesn't put out enough power to do anything to any tissue in his body apart from damage his retina if he forces himself to stare into it. And it's not even remotely the right wavelength to count as the NASA study on those LED's. There is nothing magical about a laser, it just lets you focus the power better. But if you're using what is just a fancy laser pointer, you're not even using that capability. A medical laser is a very fancy and carefully controlled and focused device putting out many times the power in controlled bursts that can be controlled precisely to do damage to tissue. Just because a scalpel can be used to heal me doesn't mean I can hit myself over the head with a steak knife and cure my baldness

OddBall: it was almost certainly not a green laser that did the work on your eyes, the lower power targeting laser is green ,or red, that shows where the beam will go, but the actual cutting is done by a high power UV laser.

I totaly believe a red laser pointer can cure the skin after a minor cut. To prove my point, do the following test:

1. Cut yourself with a stake knife, not too deep, lest people think you're crazy.

2. shine the laser over the cut for several days, even weeks.

What is left after that time?, only a minor scar, if at all.

Then again, the same result could be had without the laser, right?
:laughing:

The skin is selfhealing after all. But that is the small detail people don't often mention when advertising some "medical treatments".

As for arthrities, I'm not sure a laser would be better than a normal IR lamp, other than a lot more focused beam. The benefits of using IR is that it can reach deeper in the skin than other wavelengths, so you can apply "warmth" to internal wounds without the burning sensation of using a bag with hot water, for example. Now, the question becomes, is warmth (rather than lasers) good for healing?. That is something I can't answer either :shrug:

This is entirely my opinion, though.

The_LED_Museum said:

I'd be tempted to call Mythbusters from the Discovery Channel and let them take a crack at it.

Click to expand...

"Hey Jamie, this test is taking too long... let's turn up the power!" "Yeah!"

....mmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ.......

James S said:

There is a HUGE difference between laser surgery and just shining a laser on yourself.

Laser corrective eye surgery uses the laser to burn off parts of your lens to reshape it to focus better! They aren't just shining the light in there and magically healing something. Laser eye surgery to fix a detached retina uses the laser to create scar tissue to tack the remaining retina tissue back against the back of the eye where it will stop falling off and then be in the focal plane again. They aren't just shining the light in there and letting some miracle happen.

Laser skin resurfacing burns off the top couple of layers of skin letting new skin grow back in place of it that looks, at least for a while, pinker and less winkled and any surface blemishes that where in it can be made to go away, or at least get better at the same time. I'd imagine there is a limit to the number of times you can do this... There has got to be some video of this on the web somewhere, I've seen it on TV it's rather gruesome actually you can watch the laser scan a portion of skin burning and making smoke! They aren't just shining the laser at your skin and waiting for some miracle to happen.

Laser removal of tatoos or birthmarks has to do with using a wavelength of light, or a focus of the laser to concentrate the heat deeper in the skin to denature or burn the ink or affected tissue without burning the top layers. They aren't just shining any old handy light source at it and hoping your immune system will notice and do something about it.

The confusion here is the combination of real laser medicine and reports that certain wavelengths of long IR leds can improve healing. Mix the two together in someone's head without any understanding of it and they will try anything

Your buddies laser level doesn't put out enough power to do anything to any tissue in his body apart from damage his retina if he forces himself to stare into it. And it's not even remotely the right wavelength to count as the NASA study on those LED's. There is nothing magical about a laser, it just lets you focus the power better. But if you're using what is just a fancy laser pointer, you're not even using that capability. A medical laser is a very fancy and carefully controlled and focused device putting out many times the power in controlled bursts that can be controlled precisely to do damage to tissue. Just because a scalpel can be used to heal me doesn't mean I can hit myself over the head with a steak knife and cure my baldness

OddBall: it was almost certainly not a green laser that did the work on your eyes, the lower power targeting laser is green ,or red, that shows where the beam will go, but the actual cutting is done by a high power UV laser.

Click to expand...

almost... It was a red tracking laser in the shape of an 'X' and the burning laser was green. I saw the smoke coming up off my eyes and saw the cool pattern it makes as it burns across ones peeper. Definitely green.

I'm sure there are UV ones but not this one. (Edit: I think the UV in it did the cooking but it was definitely green coloured.) Mine was LASEK from here: www.ianseyesite.net/

:wave:

Read this.

http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/news/releases/2000/00-336.html

and this
http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/successes/ss/8-035text.html

almost... It was a red tracking laser in the shape of an 'X' and the burning laser was green. I saw the smoke coming up off my eyes and saw the cool pattern it makes as it burns across ones peeper. Definitely green.

Click to expand...

That link goes to the "Ian Anderson" Cataract and Refractive Surgical Web Site! I think it's awesome that the lead guy from Jethro Tull has something to fall back on now that he tours with the band a little less

I wouldn't be surprised if there were green ones now that were powerful enough to do the actual work, just haven't heard of such a thing yet. In the past they used the UV lasers because they could deliver such a huge amount of power in a very short amount of time, which lets you vaporize the offending tissue without cooking the good stuff right next to it. Any company that can make an eximer laser that fits into a filing cabinet with wheels could certainly turn their expertise into pumping larger green lasers up to the necessary power levels.

Just not possible for a laymen to stay on top of all the advances in the field But I made the distinction mostly to emphasize the difference between lasers used for medicine and your red or green laser pointer which are of no medical use other than to point to where the real laser (uv or green) is going to hit!

glad that your surgery went well. My dad had laser eye surgery and I feel a lot better about him driving now. He's really gotten MUCH better since then.