How Red Light Therapy Supports Joint Healing and Recovery
Summer is here (finally!) and those beautiful sunny days bring all kinds of opportunities for adventure. Whether bike racing down a forest trail, hiking up that mountain you’ve always wanted to conquer, or surfing big waves, the possibilities are endless!
So too, are the opportunities for injury, especially of joints like our elbows, knees, ankles, or wrists. Many of our favorite summer activities often result in scrapes, bruises, or even worse. But don’t let the risks stop you from having fun – take appropriate caution, and rest assured that should a joint injury come your way, there are safe and effective tools that you can use to quickly get back on your feet.
At Fringe, our favorite tool to treat joint injuries is Red Light Therapy. Red Light Therapy uses red and near infrared light to stimulate cellular healing, decrease pain and inflammation, and help our bodies to recover more quickly. It’s super gentle and easy to use – even young children and pets can benefit! Read on to learn more about how Red Light Therapy can be used to help you be on top of your game – whatever your game is – and deal with any injury that summer fun brings your way.
How Red Light Therapy Helps Joint Healing
After a joint injury, our bodies go through several stages of healing, which can last for days, weeks, and even months. Red Light Therapy can help every step of the way, starting from the initial insult to the final stage of tissue remodelling. Here’s how it shines (pun intended!) across the entire healing journey.
Stage 1: The Inflammatory Phase
(First Few Days After Injury)
You’ve just somersaulted off your bike, landing hard on your knee. Immediately, there is trauma. Blood vessels rupture, and you start bleeding, triggering a cascade of clotting to try to minimize blood loss. Beneath the surface, muscles, tendons, and ligaments are strained or torn, setting off their own inflammatory responses and adding to the overall complexity of the injury.
Immune cells rush in to start working their inflammatory magic. Inflammation in the first days after injury is essential for clearing out damaged tissue and signaling the body to begin repair. Inflammation is normal and desirable at this stage of injury, but if it lingers too long, it can slow healing.
As soon as you’ve caught your breath and assessed the damage, it’s time to start Red Light Therapy. Both red and near infrared light can help during the inflammatory phase by ensuring that inflammation doesn’t last longer than necessary and supports the body shifting into an anti-inflammatory state as healing progresses. It also helps to reduce pain and swelling, which are at their worst immediately following injury.
Red Light Therapy also increases blood flow. If there’s any bleeding, you’ll want to wait until it has fully stopped (typically within 12 to 24 hours) before starting. But if there’s no bleeding, like with a sprain or strain, RLT can be applied right away to begin supporting the healing process. Increasing blood flow supports healing by delivering more oxygen and nutrients for tissue repair, along with white blood cells that help clean up damaged tissue and coordinate the immune response.
Stage 2: Tissue Repair & Regeneration
(Days to Weeks After Injury)
Your knee is feeling better, and the swelling and pain has started to diminish. But don’t quit Red Light Therapy yet – it’s now time to use it to support tissue repair and regeneration. This is a critical healing phase for ensuring that you come out on the other side with strong, healthy, and well-aligned tissue.
In this phase of healing, Red Light Therapy may still be needed to reduce pain and inflammation, and to increase blood flow, but it also has other benefits. Things now have shifted from “crisis” to “healing” mode, and there is much repair work to be done. During healing, it is necessary to repair and replace damaged tissue. This requires cellular energy, protein synthesis, and new blood vessel formation. Red Light Therapy has been shown in numerous scientific studies to help with all these things.
Stage 3: Remodeling & Maturation
(Weeks to Months After Injury)
If that knee injury was a doozy, it takes a while to get fully back to normal. Be patient and make sure that conditions are optimal for cellular healing, which means a good balance of rest and activity, and supporting long-term tissue remodeling with Red Light Therapy.
The most important use of Red Light Therapy during this phase is to support the cells within muscle, tendons, ligaments, and skin as they rebuild strong, flexible tissue in a process called tissue remodelling and maturation. Collagen – a critically important protein found in all supportive tissue in the body – is highly responsive to red and near infrared light. Fibroblasts, which are cells responsible for producing collagen and other components of the extracellular matrix, are particularly sensitive to these light wavelengths. In this phase, it’s not just about making more collagen, but also about organizing it properly to ensure strength and mobility. Red Light Therapy supports collagen synthesis, and ensures that healing tissue is strong, resilient, and well-aligned.
How to Use Red Light Therapy for Joint Recovery
The main priority when using Red Light Therapy to support joint healing is to ensure distribution of light over as much of the joint as possible. While a range of devices can be used for this purpose, some of the most common have limitations when it comes to joints, which have complex three dimensional structures and move in multiple directions.
Take, for example, a Red Light Therapy panel. Panels shine light in a single plane, so the affected body part must be placed directly in front of it. In the case of an elbow, knee, ankle, or wrist injury, this means that only one part of the joint (front, side, or back) can receive light at a time. Achieving full coverage requires repositioning, which can be inconvenient, especially when you’re injured. Panels also require people to remain stationary during treatment.
Red Light Therapy wraps offer a more effective and convenient treatment option when it comes to joints. Wraps can be placed around most joints in the body, and because they are flexible, they can deliver light to the entire joint surface. Wraps also offer the convenience of being wireless and portable.
When it comes to wraps, shape matters. While flat wraps can work well, joint specific designs – like the Fringe Multijoint Wrap – are even better. A joint specific wrap is designed for better contouring around the joint surface, and as a result, gives better coverage and more uniform light exposure. The ergonomic design of a multijoint wrap means that your body receives optimal light – and consequently, optimal healing.
conclusion
Injuries may be an inevitable part of an active life, but how you respond to them makes all the difference. With Red Light Therapy, you have a powerful, science-backed tool to support every stage of healing, including reducing pain, calming inflammation, and helping your body rebuild stronger, healthier tissue. At Fringe, we’ve designed our Multijoint Wrap specifically for joints like elbows, knees, ankles, and wrists – so you can treat the full joint surface with ease and get back to doing what you love, faster.
about the author
Dr. Genevieve Newton, DC, PhD spent close to 20 years as a researcher and educator in the field of nutritional sciences before joining Fringe as its Scientific Director. Gen’s job is to “bring the science” that supports Fringe’s products and education. She is passionate about all things Fringe, and is a deep believer in healing body, mind and spirit using the gifts of the natural world.
The contents in this blog; such as text, content, graphics are intended for educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider.
