Helping athletes heal faster

The biggest frustration of all athletes is dealing with injury. The constant wear and tear and increased mileage often causes different parts of the body to break down, rendering an athlete unable to compete. In many sports, success is determined by how healthy an athlete or team are throughout a competition. How fast an injured player heals, for example, makes a difference in how a basketball team fares in a long tournament. Therapy and recovery always seems to take too long. There is a new technology that is being used extensively overseas to help athletes and even ordinary people, heal faster in a non-invasive way. It is called cold laser technology.

When one mentions lasers, you imagine high-intensity, penetrating beams of red light often used in weapons in science fiction movies.

But at the other end of the spectrum is a much lower intensity of laser that does not even break the skin, and helps cells regenerate.

Injured cells are unable to heal themselves. A low level laser, sometimes called a “cold” or “soft” laser, helps cells release their trapped or polarized energy. Afterwards, the cold laser also sends energy into the cells to help them regenerate. Interacting with tissues of the body, cold lasers cause certain photochemical reactions and stimulate natural healing processes. They supply energy in the form of billions of photons of light, which the body absorbs at the cellular level and transforms it into chemical energy which can be used for tissue repair. All major practitioners of healing arts from Deepak Chopra to traditional medical doctors agree that the human body is capable of incredible feats of healing, if given the proper chance and assisted in a natural way.

Dr. Frederico Abella, M.D., has brought this technology to the Philippines through Theralase, a portable hand-held cold laser device that has been successfully used to treat injuries of some of the most well-known athletes in the world. Perhaps its most famous beneficiary is Roy “Doc” Halladay, Major League Baseball’s 2007 Cy Young awardee and a seven-time MLB All-Star. Treatments with the Theralase therapeutic medical laser has kept his throwing arm healthy and help him recover from fatigue. On Oct. 6, Halladay, now pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies, pitched only the second no-hitter in MLB post-season history against the Cincinnati Reds. The first was Don Larsen’s back in 1956. This was Halladay’s second no-hitter this year.

“The cold laser penetrates up to four inches into tissue, promoting very deep healing,” Abella explains the First Law of Photochemistry, that light must be absorbed by a chemical substance for the reaction to take place. “The immediate relief and enhanced mobility is such a great bonus for athletes, who are often used to having to live with pain while being treated.”

Another athlete who has gotten used to working his way back to amazing returns is Beijing Olympics semifinalist James Blake, who was once the 14th-ranked tennis player in the world. He once withdrew from the Rogers Masters tournament in Montreal because of severe abdominal muscle strain. After two weeks of two treatments a day with the Theralase cold laser, Blake was fit enough to return to active play, and finished runner-up and champion in the next two tournaments he joined.

In 2005, he had already been named the ATP’s Comeback Player of the Year. Other athletes who vouch for the cold laser treatments are four-time Olympian, trackster Johnny Grey (who pulled a quadricep) and two-time US 800-meter champion Claudette Groenendaal (who suffered from lower back pains).

The cold laser has so many applications, since it basically energizes muscle tissue and other organs to heal themselves much faster. The theory on Cellular Pathways shows that cells are able to be stimulated by light energy to “increase their chemical energy transformation or use.” Other theories state that the light must be of the proper wavelength to produce the desired effect on human tissue.

Just to show the range of treatments that cold laser technology is useful for, it has been successfully used to treat joint pain, shingles, burns, ice burns (which athletes are susceptible to after hard training), keloids, infected diabetic ulcers, muscle pain, arthritis, back pains, and many chronic injuries.

“The laser is completely safe. Of course, there are areas that it cannot be used on,” adds Abella. “Skin with tattoos, for example, will build up heat, so we use the laser at another angle. And we don’t use them on the eyes. But other than that, the results are immediate and safe.”

Abella is confident because he has studied the effects of the laser extensively, and has even used it on his own family. He is married to the youngest sister of actor Robin Padilla, and has treated his mother-in-law, Eva Carino, to relieve her painful arthritis. After just two treatments, he claims she was able to regain full movement of her fingers.

“Of course, like any new technology, people want to see someone else try it first,” he laughs. “And some are surprised that the machine itself is portable. They’ve gotten used to the higher-intensity lasers that you see in hospitals. But the size of the machine makes no difference in its efficacy.”

Abella is hoping that the introduction of Theralase equipment in the country will help ease the suffering of athletes, the elderly, the injured and the recovering, and the local medical community will embrace this new healing technology.

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Theralase is exclusively available at Organilink Clinic, Aguirre St., BF Homes Parañaque. For inquiries, call 586-7632 or 345-3337.