Low Level Laser Therapy Provides An Effective Drug-Free, Safe Resolution Option for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)
Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) can be successfully treated with LLLT can be successfully treated with LLLT to achieve resolution.
What is an RSI?
Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) are soft tissue injuries caused by repeated, overuse or misuse of parts of the body like the neck, shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers. Soft tissue includes tendons, ligaments, muscles, fascia, nerves and blood vessels.
Repetitive Strain Injury often references a number of conditions negatively affecting the muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, or joints. RSI is often linked to work due to repetitive activities carried out during work. RSI is characterised by numbness, pain, and a wasting and weakening of muscles.
Most common forms of RSI include upper limb tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome and thoracic outlet syndrome. RSI Symptoms include tingling, swelling and numbness, pain or ache and related loss of strength and flexibility. Not everyone shows all the symptom. Further, RSI may not show up until several hours, days or weeks after the activity which caused it.
RSI Symptoms
You could be suffering from RSI is any of the following combinations of conditions applies to you
- You’ve recently noticed a numbness or a sharp, dull or “tooth ache” like pain in your wrist, shoulder, neck or hand that has been there for longer than a week and shows no signs of improving on its own.
- Your job, hobby or pastime often makes the pain worse.
- Your job involves doing a high-intensity activity for a long time without rest.
- Your job involves poor posture or activities that require you to work in an awkward position.
- You suffer from stress
- Your job involves doing a particular activity repeatedly or for a long period of time
- You may have been told or you may suspect that what you have is an RSI / work Related Upper limb disorder, Arthritis, ‘wear and tear’ or joint degeneration.
- Neither the “painkillers and rest” option advised by your GP, nor do the ‘generic’/’off the shelf’ exercises are helping
Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) is the application of red and near infrared light over injuries to stimulate cellular repair. LLLT has a powerful anti-inflammatory effect as well as a healing effect on inflamed bursae and surrounding inflamed soft tissues. LLLT is completely safe and has no effect on normal tissues.
LLLT can help you if:
- You value being healthy and pain free, so you want to seek the best advice possible, straight away
- You definitely want to AVOID surgery or having to have injections.
- You work in a cold environment
- Nobody has even given you a definitive diagnosis for your condition so you’ve no idea what’s happened or why.
Low Level Laser Therapy used for RSIs is non-invasive laser stimulation, which uses low-level (cold) laser beams focused on pain points in the wrist and hand. The technique promotes cell repair and reduce inflammation related to carpal tunnel syndrome and other such injuries. Low Level Laser therapy should not be confused with conventional laser surgery, which is uses hot lasers and is a treatment for precise surgery and other medical problems.
Inflammation is the body’s response to injury to attempt to heal it. But often the inflammatory reaction is excessive and this has a paradoxical inhibitory effect on the body’s natural healing mechanisms. This then perpetuates pain and dysfunction in the affected area. By improving circulation and increasing cellular repair functions LLLT provides an environment for your body’s own natural healing processes to be activated and restored. Once normal immune processes are restored, the excessive inflammation is reduced and healing can begin.
LLLT does not exert any physical force on the soft tissue. Manipulation of the soft tissue just aggravates it, so you don’t want to actually handle the soft tissue, but instead decreasing the inflammation enables faster healing and regeneration.
LLLT stimulates blood flow and lymphatic drainage, improved delivery of O2 and nutrition to the area, oxygen utilisation, removal of oxygen-free radicals and other waste products, and tissue healing. Read more on how Low Level Laser Therapy works.
You will be encouraged to move the affected area within range of movement/pain but not exert stretch or force during the healing phase
The end result is resolution of inflammation and restoration of healthy bursa and local soft tissues. Once tissues are healed, pain is eliminated and normal range of motion and function is restored. Then muscle and tendon strength and flexibility can be addressed with graduated exercises and stretching.
LLLT has no known side effects, is safe and effective. By treating the underlying problem, LLLT results in relief of pain and restoration of function, assisting with issues such as RSI, knee pain, hip pain and bursitis related chronic pain and many more.
