What Is This LASER Therapy Stuff?

Written by Dr. Albert Nelmapius, DVM · Safari Animal Clinic & Laser Center, Tampa

Imagine you are a more seasoned mature human being like me. Do not say old. You have been out toiling in the field for hours, you lifted a few heavy loads, dragged a few logs around and dug a few trenches with a shovel, and by the end of the day your back and your knees are aching and throbbing.

Then you go home and slide into a hot tub, or even just a warm bubble bath, to soothe your joints. Soon you feel like a million bucks again. Why is that? What just happened? Did somebody put narcotics in the water? No, none of that. There are no drugs involved.

So what is actually happening?

You expose your tendons, muscles and joints to energy particles. You know how plant cells need sunlight for photosynthesis in order to regenerate? Well, somewhere back in the history of our ancestors, our mammalian cells retained a little of that regenerating ability in the presence of heat energy.

That is what a LASER beam is. It is a highly concentrated wave of energy that is radiated into muscles and joints. Swollen and painful cells soak up this energy and the pain subsides. The cells also stock up on a new source of healing energy they have not used in a long time, and that speeds up healing, sometimes in half the time.

At the same time it stimulates the body to release nitric oxide, which is soothing, healing and calming. A lot of patients look like they are drifting into a light sleeping trance while they are being lasered. This combination also lets the body release endorphins, the body's natural pain relief system, many times more potent than morphine.

Then there is the second machine

If you crank up the strength of the beam and concentrate it to a tiny pinpoint, it will actually pulverise tissue, like a surgical beam in Star Wars. It leaves no swelling, no bleeding and no pain once the patient wakes up from anesthesia.

That is our LASER surgery machine. It is the only surgical cutting instrument we use these days. We have no need for scalpel blades.

You know when you accidentally cut your finger with a steak knife? It swells up, and by the next day your finger feels twice its normal size, and every time you touch something it feels like somebody is hitting it with a hammer. None of that happens when we use the LASER.