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The MSing Link
243. MS Red Light Therapy for Nerve Repair & Inflammation – Chiropractor + PhD Explains
00:43:27
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A
Welcome back and thanks for tuning in. Today I'm joined by Dr. Genevieve Newton, a chiropractor, Ph.D. and the scientific director at Fringe, a wellness company known for their red light therapy products and their research backed approach to healing. Jen spent nearly 20 years in nutritional science before stepping into this role and she brings a deep, grounded insight into how natural therapies can support our body, mind and spirit. If you've ever been curious about red light therapy, especially for ms, you're going to love this episode. We get into the real nitty gritty science behind it, not just the buzz, how it affects the immune system and nervous system and what it can actually do for symptoms like fatigue, pain and drop foot. Jen even walks us through her go to protocol for supporting the immune system and nervous systems we with red light therapy. So be ready to take notes. If Fringe sounds familiar, it's because we also had the founder of Fringe, Alison Evans, on the podcast back in episode 23. That was an amazing overview of her personal journey and how Fringe came to be and also a bit on what red light therapy is. This episode builds on that with Jen giving us the why and the how behind the tech. Let's dive in.
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B
The big question is, how does someone with Ms. Actually improve their mobility, strength, energy independence? The list goes on. My name is Dr. Gretchen Holley, physical therapist and multiple sclerosis specialist. Welcome to the Missing Link podcast. Tune in as I share the top strategies and exercises to help you gain control over your life with ms, using research driven insights and advice from top industry experts. Whether you're newly diagnosed or have had.
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Ms. For over 30 years, whether you.
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Have relapsing Ms. Or progressive MS, this podcast is for you. You're sure to feel empowered and inspired after each episode.
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A
Ready?
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B
Let's dive in.
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A
Genevieve, thank you so much for being here with us today.
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C
Oh, my pleasure, Gretchen. It's amazing to be able to come and talk about this. It's not a typical application of red light therapy as far as most people think about it, but I'm going to tell you some things today that will hopefully inspire people to maybe explore this therapy for the treatment of Ms. Symptoms.
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A
Yeah, I'm really excited because I think red light therapy in particular can for some people feel a little woo woo and like this is just crazy. It's light. Like what is this really doing? So I'm excited to get into the specifics.
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C
Yes.
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A
Before we do, is it okay if I ask you a question from my interview deck?
- [03:12]
C
Yes, absolutely.
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A
Okay, just shuffling over here. Your question is, do you have a favorite thing you do for a girl's night out.
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C
It's funny because my favorite thing to do for a girls night out is perhaps not super exciting to a lot of people. I was going to say my favorite girls night out would actually just be a girls night in because I absolutely love having quiet time. I've got two teenage boys and the house is always very noisy. So my girls night out would always really just be with a couple of my dearest friends and that ends up being a lot of laughs. So it's not particularly quiet. But the main thing is just being with those really, really, really special people.
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A
I love that. That reminds me, when I was living in Boston, I went to a physical therapy school in Boston and then ended up staying for 10 years. And my friend group there used to have book club and it was required that the host of book club had wine and cupcakes. And if you read the book, that was great, but that wasn't the requirement. But that was always really fun getting together with them.
- [04:17]
C
Exactly. That's what matters the most. Yes. Awesome.
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A
Okay, so we've got a bunch of information. I've got a bunch of questions for you. Some are my own, some are from what my Missing link members have submitted. But my first question, in case people haven't heard of red light therapy or Fringe or you, can you explain who you are and what you do?
- [04:37]
C
Yes. Okay. So I am the scientific director of Fringe. Fringe is what I describe as the best description is that it's a wellness company. Now we're most well known for our red light therapy products, but we actually created the company out of a desire to have this ecosystem of what we call heals factors. So light is a heels factor, nature is a heels factor. Breath and sound and energy and water and community movement. These are the things that we know are essential for our health and well being and that we have really gotten separated from to a large extent with our modern lifestyle. So our goal at Fringe is to bring these things back into people's lives and my job as the scientific director. So my background is I initially trained as a chiropractor. That's where I met the founder of Fringe, Allison Evans. We were roommates in chiropractic college, but then I went on to graduate school. I did a PhD in nutritional sciences, worked as a unit university professor for 12 years. But I've always been very fringe. So my interests have been really, really diverse. My doctorate is in nutritional science and we make some nutritional supplements at Fringe. So I'm very involved in the formulation aspect of things. But I'm really just interested in everything complementary and alternative medicine. So this is really my dream job. I left the university to come in and do this. And a lot of the time is spent on red light therapy. But we also have, as I said, a line of supplements and we're working on new products all the time. And so it's just, it' really fun. The goal for me though is that everything that we do is evidence based. And the other goal that we have at Fringe, we make these products to bring to people, but we are passionate about education and sharing this knowledge with people. I think there is something so powerful in terms of when people understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. You know, it's one thing to say, okay, here, take this red light therapy, put product or this supplement, use it for 20 minutes a day, or take it once a day and just send them on their way. That's not what we want to do. We want to educate and use all of the scientific evidence in a consumer friendly way. We do also create education for clinicians though. We create, you know, six hour courses on red light therapy for continuing ed credits for physical therapists and naturopaths, et cetera. So we do a lot of different things, but our goal is really just to help people to be healthy.
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A
That's really exciting. And I can already tell I'm going to love our conversation because I personally love knowing that why behind things. And I know a lot of my missing link members and followers and listeners to this podcast do as well. So let's go into the first question, which we're going to keep it really basic at first. So what exactly is red light therapy?
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C
Yes, and I think that's such an important starting point because a lot of people do not understand what that is. Most people would just think, all right, I'm shining a red light onto my.
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A
Body and there are products that it's literally just light that's red.
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C
Absolutely, absolutely. And so the very short answer to that question is red light therapy is the use of red and or near infrared light to influence biology. So that's a really short answer. But then we need to ask the question, okay, what exactly is light? What is red and near infrared light? And so for this we have to think about sunlight. And with sunlight, we've got two components. We have a visible light spectrum and then we have an invisible light spectrum. And that is comprised of ultraviolet light and infrared light for the invisible. And then the visible is just all Those different colors of the rainbow, which, of course, we typically just see as, you know, white light. But if you shine it through a prism, you'll see all of those different colors. The red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Now, the red and the near infrared seem to be really special in terms of influencing biology and also in terms of their distribution in sunlight. So if we were to break it all down into percentages, actually, a majority of our sunlight is red and near infrared. So we can see the red that affects our eyes, and it travels to the brain and stimulates our receptors there. But the near infrared, we don't see, but we can feel it as a very gentle heat. Now, if we take things a little bit into the weeds, tiny bit further, then you start to ask the question, what exactly is light? So light is just energy that's traveling in waves. So it's traveling through space from our sun, and it's basically like a little packet of energy that we call a photon. A lot of people have heard that term, photon. It's equivalent to light. Now, the only thing that distinguishes these different types of light from each other is the wavelength. So if we measure. We look at that little photon traveling through space, and we measure the distance from the start of the wave, one wave, to the end of a wave, and it literally looks like a wave with a peak and a trough. We can measure that. And it's literally measured in units of meters called nanometers. And so the different colors of light have a different wavelength. So red light, for example, is in the low sixes to 750 nanometers. And then as the light gets longer, that's when we shift into infrared. And the first infrared that we get to is the near infrared, and those two together. So basically, from 620nm to 1100nm, red and near infrared light. And that's red light therapy. It's applying those light wavelengths to the body for the purposes of influencing biology.
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A
So I recently saw a product where I think it was supposed to be like a nightlight.
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C
Yes.
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But you could touch it, and it would change to, like, blue and yellow and red. So it's the red on something like that. Therapeutic as well. Or.
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C
It is. It is. Yes, it is. And so it's funny, One of the products that we are working on right now is a product very similar to what you're describing. Because when we talk about red light therapy, we have two routes of influence to the body. One is through the eyes. Now, that's really just going to be your red. It's not going to be your near infrared. So the light from the pathway going from the eyes to the brain, that's what you're talking about when you've got a light source in a room that you're using is basically to illuminate the room. Now, when we talk about the red and the near infrared light, where we're applying like a wrap to our skin or we're trying to reduce inflammation associated with, you know, maybe you've exercised too hard, you know, you're trying to decrease pain and inflammation. That's another pathway that is the skin or tissue to the cells. So basically you can have these two different routes of approaches. And when it comes to ms, the majority of what we're going to talk about today is that skin tissue pathway. But there are benefits also through light coming in through the eyes. So, yes, now I would definitely tell people that there are very different biological effects of the different types of light. So if you had a device that you touched it and it gave you blue light, that's going to be really helpful for waking you up early in the day and getting you energized. And you want to be using that at a period in time in your day where you're not trying to quiet down and you're not trying to go to sleep, that red and the amber light, that's what you want to use at night. So that form of light exposure is often used for regulating your circadian rhythm and then also for helping with mood as well. Very helpful for people with, for example, example, seasonal affective disorder, that exposure to the blue light or the bright white light can be very helpful. Red light is helpful with kind of quieting things down at night, getting you ready for basically going to sleep.
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A
So one of my missing link members asked me, is this the same type of therapy that is used in infrared saunas or at a med spa?
- [12:18]
C
Yeah, great question. So infrared is going to be a quite a long span of those wavelengths. And so we essentially cut that in half and we say that the side that's closest to the red end of the spectrum is our near infrared light. We feel that as a gentle heat. If we go into the upper ends, the longer wavelengths, we feel that as quite intense heat. That's far infrared, and that's what you're getting in those far infrared or those infrared saunas. So an infrared sauna is going to primarily be far infrared. Now, that being said, some of them are including near infrared as well. So you'd have to ask at the med spa, you know, what exactly do you have in here as far as our light sources? And a lot of medical spas are also doing near infrared light therapy through different things. Like, for example, a bed that looks like a tanning bed or a device that looks like a dome that's for skin health specifically. Even like a panel that you stand in front of or that you put in front of your face. So in general, infrared light. Infrared light is used a lot in medical spas these days, but there are some different forms and different applications.
- [13:24]
A
Interesting. Okay, so you just started touching on how red light therapy and other lights can influence our biology. But how does it influence our biology, especially as it relates to multiple sclerosis?
- [13:39]
C
Yeah, and this is when we sort of look at the evolution of red light therapy, research kind of going into this, more general applications of, like, pain and inflammation. But recently we're realizing that it influences our biology in really every system. And there are applications as a result of this related to the nervous system and related to the immune system. And so that's primarily what we're looking at with Ms. Of course, you can have general effects related to pain or inflammation for anybody. But if we're talking Ms. Specifically, we're really wanting to look at that nervous system with our brain and our spinal cord and our peripheral nerves and also for the immune system. It's really one of those stories that, you know, you hear it, and as you said, people think it's kind of woo because it's like, well, I'm shining light on my body. How on earth can this be helping me? But here's the very simple answer to how this can help. With so many things most people have, whether you have a biology background or not, you can remember way back to high school biology, you learned about the science cell. And if you recall anything about the cell, what most people recall is that there is something in there called the mitochondria that generates cellular energy, and that energy is in the form of ATP. So it's funny, because I learned about mitochondria for years and years and years, you know, studying in graduate school and everything. But it wasn't until about five years ago that I actually saw an image of a cross section of a cell under an electron microscope. And instead of just having a few mitochondria here and there, the cell is literally so packed with mitochondria that you almost don't see anything else. And that was like a light bulb moment where I went, okay, so that's why these things are so important. And when we look at the pathology of so many of our neurodegenerative diseases. What's one of the first things that we see? Right, we see mitochondrial dysfunction. When those mitochondria are dysfunctional, for whatever reason, it's impossible to have optimal health. And so if that's happening in the nervous system, well, you have nerve degeneration. If that's happening in the immune system, you have suboptimal immune function. So this mitochondria is really the central piece to the story of red light therapy. And that's because inside of it, this is another term that many people will remember, the electron transport chain. The electron transport chain is the thing that generates the energy and, and inside that electron transport chain are these receptors. They're photoreceptors that respond to both the red and the near infrared light. And the response is that they function better, they make more cellular energy. And any cell that has more cellular energy is going to function more optimally. And if it's a diseased cell, it can heal. Right. So what we're looking at then is this mitochondria as our central focus. And then downstream of that, all these amazing things happen. So for example, in the immune system, what we see is that there are effects on T cell autoreactivity, there's an effect on immune tolerance where the immune system becomes more tolerant and less prone to autoimmunity. In the nervous system, one of the biggest ones is a decrease in inflammation. So again, looking at the pathology of ms, we've got neuro inflammation, that's, you know, a pathological characteristic. We also see a decrease in oxidative stress. And anybody who, you know, spends time reading about ms, you're going to read about three things. You're going to read about oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and neuroinflammation. And red light therapy has been shown in numerous studies to help with all of those different things. And then the other thing that's not as well researched, but there's some really, really powerful research, especially in animal models. It's shown that it has the ability to help with nerve regeneration. So when a nerve becomes dam damaged and you can shine the light, the near infrared and the red light onto it, there's an improvement in speeding up of that repair. So I want to say, I don't think I've said this so far. What's the difference between the red and the near infrared? I talked about that wavelength story. And what that translates to from a biological perspective is that the near infrared light is able to penetrate into the body more deeply. So if you're shining light onto a part of the body where, let's say I wanted to, you know, address an issue in my hand, I had weakness or pain in my hand where I don't have a lot of tissue, the red and the near infrared light will be essentially equivalent at that point because you don't need to get in too deeply. But if you're trying to get deeper through bone, for example, in the brain, then you're going to be looking at the near infrared as being more beneficial. So the two of them really work synergistically together. And that's why I always recommend that if you're going to get a product that's a red light therapy product, always get one that has both red and near infrared light.
- [18:35]
A
So then if we're trying to affect a muscle, is that deep enough where we would need that near infrared or just red light? Like how deep is needed for one versus the other?
- [18:48]
C
Yeah, well, so I think that for most muscles, the near infrared is going to be really the beneficial one that's getting in there more deeply. But of course, we do have superficial muscles. So for example, one of the research studies that has been done with Ms. Patients, they were putting the light on the tibialis anterior muscle, which is just on the lower leg in the front. And so for that, red light is going to be good enough. You don't really need to get that deep. But let's say you wanted to get into the back muscle, the gastrocnemius, and you wanted to get deep into the belly of that muscle, then you're going to be wanting the near infrared. So it just makes it easier to have a device that delivers both wavelengths and then you don't really have to think about it.
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A
Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. Why you have to think about that. Just know you're getting it.
- [19:33]
C
Exactly.
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A
So this might be kind of a silly question, but as you were just sharing your last answer, my question that was coming to my mind was when you have Ms. And you had mentioned that red light therapy has been shown to help with repair, would it be more beneficial to place the red light therapy on your head? Because that's where our brain is and that's where the repair, in theory, would be happening, would that be better than just like laying in a bed of red light therapy? Or does that not matter a whole lot?
- [20:05]
C
Yeah, no, that's a really important question. And so when you look at all of the research that's been done with ms, which is at this point Still a very small body of research that's Ms. Specific. We have a much bigger body of research that kind of hits in different areas and is in pre clinical models looking at the nervous system. So that location issue, where do you shine the light and what you see. When you look at the research that's been done so far, the study is done with animals which of course are much easier to control. Those typically shine light along the spine. And so there's a lot of focus along the spine and whole body, particularly on the dorsal back region. When you look at the research on humans, what has been done is either to try to target multiple different points, to try to get more of like a systemic whole body effect, or get to something that is a problem area. So one problem area study looked at the jaw, the TMJ function, and another one looked at that lower leg motor function that I was telling you about. So personally, I really think the answer to that question, Gretchen, is that it helps in both. And so I think that from the perspective of ms, you really want to look at having three targets. You want to have your brain as a target, you want to have your spinal cord as a target. So that's your central nervous system target, that's one. Peripheral nerves in terms of supporting peripheral nerve function, that's another. And then your immune system as another target. And we can talk about how to kind of get all of those there. Certainly if you lie in a red light therapy bed, you get all of those things all at once. But if you do that, you either have to invest in a $30,000 bed at home or go to a clinic three times a week that has a bed. So that can definitely be an option for people. But there's also some at home options that we can talk about how people could use different products at home to, to get the same benefits.
- [22:03]
A
Yeah, we'll definitely get to that for sure. So you mentioned that there are some studies, not a ton, but some studies with red light therapy, nms. What is something cool that you've seen in the research?
- [22:15]
C
Yeah, yeah. So definitely the animal research. I don't know if you're aware of this. There's an animal model that's used to study multiple sclerosis. It's called an autoimmune encephalitis model. And there was a, recently a really neat study published in 2024 where researchers took rats, they divided them into two groups. And so one group was receiving red and near infrared light and one group was receiving what they call a sham light, a pretend light. It didn't actually have those light wavelengths in it. And they trained the rats to go into this plexiglass container. So they would give them a reward. The rats would just walk in. It was very stress, low stress. And they then ended up staying there for six minutes. And while they were there for six minutes, light was applied to the back of the body, specifically along the spinal column, and then also on the front of the body as well. So they had a pretty significant light exposure, but it was only six minutes in duration. And they studied a number of different outcomes. And the advantage of being able to research this in an animal model is that you can really get into digging deep with the tissues and seeing on many different outcomes what's happening. So one of the things that they found was that the sensory motor coordination was increased by about 50%. Another one was that the locomotion ability. And they measured this by having, it's called a spinning rotor rod. So the rad is on a rod and the rod starts to spin and it spins faster and faster and faster. And they see how long it takes for them to lose their balance and that again, they could stay on it for twice as long. So the results were really, really dramatic in terms of that function. But also when they looked on a histological level, what was happening with the tissues, they found that there was a decrease in inflammation really at that cellular level. So we know that's one of the main mechanisms that's, that's taking place here. But there was also a very significant difference in the two groups in nerve degeneration. So in the group that was receiving the sham, like the placebo light, there was much greater damage to the nervous system than in the group that was receiving the red light. And that was only a second, six, six minutes over 16 days. You know, it wasn't like this was being done for eight months or rats obviously have a shorter lifespan. But even in the human research, all of the human research that's been done, one study that just used a single treatment that found some benefits, but all of the other studies were between 21 and 24 sessions. And they found benefits like decreased inflammation, improved muscle force, decreased disability index ratings. If people start undertaking a practice of red light therapy or a protocol of red light therapy, you can expect that it's not going to take a really long time before there are some benefits that start to be observed.
- [24:59]
A
That's really nice to hear because so much, even exercise as a physical therapist, that can take a long time to kick in for some people, it's a few days, they start to see improvements, but it can also be a few weeks or a few months or even a year or more. So this sounds very nice that you can see these benefits sooner.
- [25:19]
C
Yes. And another thing to comment on about the human research is that the studies that were, you know, 21 to 24 times, it was only two to three times a week. So this isn't necessarily something that you have to do every single day. It's something that two times a week, three times a week, you can certainly do it more. But I think it is nice for people to know that they don't necessarily have to make a massive time investment or commitment to this in order to see benefits.
- [25:45]
A
Yeah, absolutely. It feels doable, feasible, very doable. So I do want to get into recommended protocols if there are any for ms, but before we do that, it would be important that someone has a red light therapy product to use. So what should we be looking for? I don't know. I just feel like with sites like Amazon it's so easy to get something that won't actually work. So what should we be looking for specifically to support someone with Ms. For a red light therapy product?
- [26:18]
C
Yep. Such an important question because as you say, if you go, if you go to Amazon and then you'll also going to see huge differences in price, huge differences in products and it's utterly confusing. And so let's try to keep this as simple as possible for people. So the first thing is that issue of wavelengths that we've talked about. You want both the red and the near infrared. That's definitely, if you're going to invest in something, don't buy something that just has red lights. You want that deeper near infrared as well. The second is, and we haven't talked about this yet, the light source. So when you're talking about light, it can either be coming from an LED light like the lights that we use in our homes, or it can be coming from a laser. And so a laser is obviously much more intense, it's a single wavelength, whereas a LED light is going to be much less intense and it's going to give you a range. It's like when you watch it come out, it comes out as a band. So you'll read that there's like a peak, but there's going to be, you know, an additional 20nm of light on either side of that. Most of the at home devices are LED lights. So for example, the ones that we make at fringe are LED based on. There are a few that are Laser, especially a few for the head that are laser based. It's not that you need to, you know, necessarily pick one over the other. It's just important to understand the differences between them. And that brings me to the third thing that I want people to look for, which is light intensity. So lasers give a very intense light. LED lights give a more subtle, less intense light. And what that means is that if you want to get the same dose of light, you're going to use a laser for seconds to minutes, whereas you're going to use an LED based device for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. That's going to give you an equivalent dose from a different type of light source. It's not that I would discourage people from using lasers, but it is also hard to find laser devices that you can use for necessarily some of the uses that I'm going to be talking about, for example, putting it over the thymus gland in the front to stimulate the immune system. So you will find them for the brain. You don't find them as much for the other body parts. Those are usually LED based devices. So let's just recap. One, you've got red and near infrared light. Two, you're going to be looking at, is it laser or led? I do support LED devices for use at home to a greater extent because it's easier to get your dose of light. The third thing is that intensity. And so lasers are going to be much higher intensity. LEDs are lower. But specifically in the LEDs, what are you looking for? And our recommendations at fringe, after looking at all of the scientific literature and doing our research and development according to what the science says, we ended up realizing that the optimal wave intensities of those wavelengths is like the sun. And that's not really too much of a surprise, I don't think. And so that sun like intensity, a number that's between 20 and 40, it's called milliwatts per centimeter squared. So if you look for a device and it doesn't tell you what its intensity is, that's a bit of a red flag. You want to contact the manufacturer, perhaps ask them what their intensity is. So that's the fourth thing, the intensity. And then the last one I'd say is that affordability issue. And here's where, when you go to Amazon, you see some really cheap products. When you go to some of the medical sites, you can see some very expensive products. So it's the same as buying clothing, right? If you buy a really cheap product, it tends to kind of fall apart you know, maybe your fabric pills a little bit and it doesn't last very long. It's absolutely the same thing. If you see a device that's less than $100, it's probably not going to last you more than three months, for example. On the other hand, there are some very expensive devices, specifically ones for, for the brain that we see maybe in the thousands of dollars you can invest in that if that's what you want to do, but you don't have to. There's a bit of a middle spot there in terms of affordability. So for a couple of hundred dollars, you can get a good red light therapy wrap. For upwards of 4, $500, you can get a good device that's going to deal with your brain. So those are the five things that I would suggest taking a look at.
- [30:40]
A
I feel like that was insider information, especially knowing those, like specific numbers. And can I just say so we actually interviewed Alison for the Ms. Podcast a while back and one thing that I love that she was saying and that you just said just about your company overall, is that it's research backed. It's not just, oh, let's create a red light therapy. Like you're actually looking at what the research says and making a product based on that, which, that alone just like, here's my money, like, you've done the research, so I don't need to. Okay. Thank you.
- [31:11]
C
Yeah. Well, I think what, what we see happening so much now with so many products, whether they be supplements or red light therapy, really anything, is that a lot of companies just go to a manufacturer, usually they're in China or another country, and they just outsource it. Right. So that company makes the product and then you put your brand name on it and your logo and you sell it. And they don't have the education or the research surrounding it. They're trusting that the manufacturer has done that and that's really not the way that it works. So, yeah, I appreciate you saying that. It's very important to us.
- [31:44]
A
Yeah. So this might be too early, but is there a recommended protocol for using red light therapy to support people with ms?
- [31:55]
C
So I have my own recommended protocol. Is there an official protocol? No. But from my deep dive into the scientific literature on ms, I can recommend that a very, very, very basic protocol for people. So the first, first thing is that you want to be addressing the immune system, you want to be addressing the nervous system and if you have a problem area. So as you talked about that lower limb, that study that people were having jaw pain the jaw pain. So if you have a problem area, that's a third place that you can address. So going back to that point that I made about how it's not necessary to do this every day, people are seeing benefits, doing two times a week with a certain light exposure. My recommendation is on one day that you target the immune system and couple that with a problem area. And then on day two, you deal with your nervous system. And so the nervous system we're going to be talking about both the brain and along, along the spine. And so how we can do that is I'll give you a couple of different sort of illustrations here. And I would say that when we're talking about red light therapy devices, usually people are talking about either like for at home, not the beds, we're talking about a panel or some sort of wrap that goes around a body part or that's a general non specific shape. The problem with red light therapy panels for somebody who has Ms. Is that you have to stay stationary and positioned in front of that device. Right. So if you have any kind of balance problems or you're dealing with fatigue, muscle fatigue, it's probably not the best option for you. If it's uncomfortable to use, you're not going to use it. Right. So we want things that are going to be the most comfortable. So what I would recommend for the nervous system is if you're only going to invest in one product, get a wrap that is going to be able to be placed along the spine. So that would be, if you're a tiny person, that would be like a smaller wrap. If you're a taller person, that would be like a long rectangular wrap. And we do have both of these on our website if people are interested in looking at what the different sort of sizes are. But you can easily lie down and place that along the spine, leave it there for 10 minutes or 20 minutes. And then if you want to, you can also use that to get light exposure to the head. So for example, I have one of our smaller wraps here and if I turn it on, you can see that the lights come on. And it's very easy to just sort of put this over and around. The head can lie down, leave it there for 10 to 20 minutes. We also have. So if you were going to invest in one product, that's my first one. If you were going to invest in two products, the second one would be a brain head specific type of product. So we have a head wrap that goes specifically around, around the head, you just put it on and the Nice thing about wraps is that they're totally portable, they're wireless. So I'd mentioned lying down and putting the wrap along your spine. You can do that if you want to rest. I actually, I have a back problem, so I mine along my spine a lot and all I do is I tuck it into my bra or I have the wraps come with a strap that you can secure it with. Just secure it under your arms and then tuck it into your waistband and then you can stand, walk around. You've got that along, along the spine. So it's very, very flexible. So that's what I would say for day one, day two, for the immune system. Now anytime you're targeting any light over the skin, you're going to be getting the circulating blood and then there's the white blood cells in there. So that's awesome. That's getting immune system. But the other place that you want to get is the thymus gland, which is just under the sternum. And so you can take a wrap, you can place that over the chest area right there, get into the neck, or even this head wrap actually opens up when it's not folded up. It's got a beautiful shape that fits right over the thymus gland and into the neck and the lymph nodes there as well. So that's my basic protocol. It's just alternating day one, day two, targeting immune system, one day targeting nervous system, the other day, and then alternating those either two or three times a week. So a total of either four to six treatment days a week for around 20 minutes. So it's really very, very user friendly.
- [36:18]
A
So that was super helpful seeing you share. So if you're watching on YouTube, then you just saw Genevieve share those products and turn them on and you saw the bright red light. If you're listening to the podcast, you didn't see that, but that's what happened. And it looks warm. Just because it's red, you know, so you mentioned earlier though, it's not that warm. So if someone were to sit with that on their thymus or head or wherever for that 20 minutes, would it get warm at all? Is that something they should be nervous for? Just because with Ms. There is that heat intolerance when the core temperature rises.
- [36:55]
C
Yeah.
- [36:56]
A
So can you touch on that a bit?
- [36:58]
C
Absolutely. And that's a really important question. The red light does not generate any heat, but the near infrared does. So there is like a gentle warmth that is associated with the wraps. But each device has the ability, and I'll show you by pushing this Button, actually, that wasn't quite as visible on camera as I would have liked it to be. But can you see a little bit of a change there when I push that?
- [37:19]
A
Yeah.
- [37:20]
C
Okay, so by pushing this button that looks like a sun, it decreases the intensity of light by 50%. And definitely I would suggest that if somebody knows that they're very heat sensitive, use that consistently. Use that lower intensity consistently. And then another option, of course, is to use it at a higher intensity but for a shorter period of time, because that heat does build up a little bit, that heat sensation does build up a little bit over time. But absolutely, you can accommodate that thermal sensitivity very easily with a good device.
- [37:54]
A
So I know the research isn't there yet for the question I'm about to ask, but let's assume that someone is super heat intolerant, but they do want to use this product. Is there any number of minutes that you personally feel would be enough to still make a difference? Like you mentioned earlier, was it six minutes?
- [38:13]
C
Yeah. So that was the rodent study. The rodent study was six minutes. You know, I'm consistently shocked when I read the methodology of all of these different studies because when I came into this kind of research world, I was expecting that we needed more in order to get, you know, more benefits. But that hasn't been what I've seen at all. You know, you're seeing benefits from studies that are doing a single session, that are doing two sessions a week, that are using a very low intensity. In some studies, I do think that even at three to five minutes, three to six minutes of treatment. And of course, if so, if you were, let's say you were doing that lowered length of time, that shorter length of time for the nervous system, and you want it to start off at three minutes, at 50% intensity, you could put that along the spinal cord for three minutes and then do the head and do that for a week and see how you feel. Right. Start low and then work your way up slowly, even that little bit is going to be beneficial. And knowing that getting to that 20 minute maximum or 10 minute, that could be a goal, but it's not necessarily a goal that's needed in order to yield significant benefits.
- [39:26]
A
Well, that's inspiring. I like hearing that this has been so helpful. I think, again, a lot of people don't know much about light therapy and red light therapy. So I think this has opened a lot of eyes around this specific topic. If someone is listening, they're like, yeah, I need them and I want fringe. Where can they find Your products and your information.
- [39:49]
C
Our website is just www.fringeheels.com. we have all of our products on there, but we also have a lot of educational information. So if you go to our menu under blogs and research, there's a lot of topics that people may find interesting about red light therapy for inflammation. Well, hopefully we can get some information up there about red light therapy and Ms. Specifically as well. Not sure of the timeline on that, but it is a goal. So we also are happy to love hearing from customers and if you have any questions, reach out to us. The website has a link with our email address that you can email customer service and any questions that they don't know the answer to, they direct them to the medical team. So we're happy to talk to people, love hearing from people and we can give some, you know, specific, not necessarily personal medical recommendations obviously, but some, you know, we can share some research articles if people are interested in some of the things that have been done. So. Yeah. And we also are on Instagram as well with Fringe heels.
- [40:46]
A
Awesome. And we will put the links for all of those in the show notes in case anyone is looking for those. You don't have to type them out yourself. But thank you so much. This has been so insightful and such an untapped area. A lot of people don't know a lot about it, even researchers in other areas. So it's so helpful hearing your expertise and specifically as it relates to Ms. So thank you so much.
- [41:09]
C
You're welcome. You're welcome. It's a pleasure talking to you. And the one last closing statement that I or comment that I wanted to make that just popped into my head that we haven't said as we've been talking is that this is a great adjunct therapy. You know, if you do red light therapy, it doesn't mean that you have to change any of the other things that you're doing. And it's one of the things that I love so much about it. It's a tool that goes into your sort of lifestyle toolbox that you can use along with exercise. And actually on that topic of exercise, I know that's something that you work with people with all the time. We know that using red light therapy before a physical activity helps improve performance and using it after it helps with recovery. So it's possible that if someone is kind of engaging in an exercise program that they can incorporate red light therapy into that as well.
- [41:58]
A
Wow, that's very interesting. Do you know how many minutes it has to be before, after we just.
- [42:04]
C
Yeah, not a lot. Not a lot. It's really the same. You just need to get the light into the cells and as soon as it gets there, we trigger those cellular reactions.
- [42:14]
A
That is very exciting. I'm glad that popped into your mind. That's a very helpful research. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
- [42:21]
C
You're welcome, Gretchen. Nice talking to you.
- [42:29]
A
Thank you for listening to today's show.
- [42:31]
B
I am so grateful to have you as a listener. If you'd like extra resources, such as a video of one of my seated exercise classes, my favorite core exercises, and the opportunity to ask me your questions, head to missinglink.com for.
- [42:50]
A
That.
- [42:50]
B
Link will be shared in the show notes along with links to my social media handles. If you loved this episode and think a friend or family member with Ms. Would benefit from listening, please go ahead and text or email this podcast to them right now. Sharing this podcast will help me educate and empower as many Ms. Warriors as possible. Thanks again for joining and be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the Missing Link podcast.