Here at Borja PT, our world revolves around our patients’ needs! Our highly trained and experienced team is here to make your recovery a reachable goal! We specialize in keeping you active. By doing so, we empower your decision to heal the natural way, without relying on pain pills, injections or surgery. That’s where laser therapy comes in. Its revolutionary science has been helping millions of people across the world achieve the pain relief they’ve been dreaming of. So, let’s take a closer look at laser therapy and answer some of your burning questions, like what are the different types of lasers, how many treatments do you need, and will insurance cover laser therapy treatments?
What Is Laser Therapy?
First, let’s talk about what laser therapy is and how it works.
Laser therapy is a safe and effective way to eliminate pain and speed up your body’s ability to heal. It uses a special light to target injured areas, without being invasive like injections or surgeries. Treatments are quick and painless. You’ll leave each session in less pain than you did when you arrived, making it easier to get back to your normal tasks and activities.
How Does Laser Therapy Work?
Laser therapy works on a cellular level. As your cells absorb the light, the damaged ones become supercharged and start a chain reaction of positive changes throughout your body. As a result, your natural healing processes speed up, allowing you to get out of pain and move easier than before.
One of the best parts about laser therapy is that treatment isn’t invasive. Not to mention, it’s safe, fast, and painless. You can get treatment directly on the skin or about a half inch above the area, depending on the injury. While all injuries are different, most people see results within as little as 3 to 5 sessions. Better yet, the effects of the laser continue up to 18 hours after treatment. This means you’ll heal throughout your day, long after your treatment.
Laser therapy can treat conditions like:
- Low Back Pain
- Shoulder Pain
- Sciatica
- Neck Pain
- Arthritis
- TMJ
- Elbow Pain
- …And More!
Laser therapy also helps with post-surgical recovery. In fact, in some cases, it can prevent surgery altogether.
What Are The Different Types Of Laser Therapy?
There are 4 different classes of lasers. They’re divided based on their power, with class I being the lowest and class IV being the highest. Unfortunately, most lasers aren’t covered by insurance, but a few lower class lasers are. More on that later…
Low Level Lasers
Class II and III lasers are called low level lasers. These lasers work on the surface of your skin without causing a flush of heat. Since they’re limited in power, they only deliver a small amount of photons to damaged cells, which has less of an impact on injuries. So, they can still benefit less dense areas, but it will take much longer to be effective.
Class IV Lasers
Class IV lasers, on the other hand, are the most powerful medical lasers available. They go beyond the surface of your skin, traveling through muscles, joints, and even bones. Class IV lasers deliver powerful doses of light at a specific wavelength in a small amount of time. This means your treatment is short and effective, saving you both time and money. Talk about a win-win.
Why Choose Laser Therapy?
When you’re injured or in pain, there are a ton of treatment options available. Two of the most popular choices are acupuncture and massage therapy, which works on top of your skin. Laser therapy, on the other hand, penetrates deep in your body. The light is so effective, it can travel through muscles, bones, and joints. So, while those treatments can be helpful, laser therapy takes your healing to the next level.
Laser therapy doesn’t act as a temporary fix, it actually causes a series of changes that allows your body to heal itself. Essentially, lasers impact how your cells function. When your damaged cells absorb the light, they get flooded by photonic energy and begin repairing themselves from the inside out. If that isn’t enough, studies show that impaired cells actually have a stronger response to the light than healthy cells do.
Simply put, it’s the science behind laser therapy that makes it such an advantageous treatment option. You aren’t just placing a band-aid over your symptoms, you’re healing them directly at the source.
Using Laser With Modalities
Another benefit to laser therapy is that it can accelerate your healing.
Treating your injury is a journey. There needs to be a balance between where you are in the recovery process and how much pain you’re experiencing, all while slowly increasing your activities accordingly.
Typically, most treatment plans first aim to reduce pain and inflammation by using modalities like ultrasound and electrical stimulation, then shift to restoring range of motion and function later on. In these situations, relief isn’t immediate since the focus is solely on masking symptoms. The only true way to effectively reduce your pain is to address the root of the problem.
When you use laser therapy alongside modalities, you don’t have to choose between reducing pain symptoms and restoring function and range of motion. Working on all areas of recovery at the same time allows you to get out of pain and return to daily living faster than ever.
Does Insurance Cover Laser Therapy?
As previously mentioned, there are some insurance companies that cover low level laser therapy. Hospitals and inpatient facilities have been using these lasers for years to safely treat patients with a range of conditions. Unfortunately, because the lasers are less powerful, they have significantly lower results, often leaving people feeling disappointed.
Here at Borja PT, we use the class IV Lightforce FXi Laser. It’s an excellent way to relieve pain without relying on surgery or prescription meds. Whether you’ve had pain for just a few days or for several months, laser therapy can help.
Currently, insurance does not yet cover class IV laser therapy. However, more and more companies are beginning to see the benefits of laser therapy and move toward possibly making it a covered benefit down the road.
In the meantime, we offer several laser therapy packages.
Treating You Injury With Laser Therapy
You can choose to purchase individual laser therapy treatments, or bundle them for higher savings. The number of sessions you’ll need in your road to recovery all depends on your condition.
At your first treatment, we will evaluate your injury and determine the protocol that would be most beneficial to you. This is what we like to call the induction phase. After your 4th session, we’ll reassess your injury to see how you’re responding to the protocol and if any modifications are needed.
The next phase depends on how much progress you’ve made. For newer injuries, you may only need a few more laser treatments. Older injuries, on the other hand, may need another 6-12 sessions. Remember, the longer you’ve been in pain, the more treatment you may need to heal.
Laser With Physical Therapy
Laser is often used with other kinds of therapy, especially physical therapy. In fact, many people have the best results when they combine both types of therapy. Think of it as working double to recover and get back to enjoying the things you love. We offer discounts for those who do both PT and laser together.
PT focuses on controlling pain and improving function. This is done by strengthening muscle groups that are responsible for stability. Using laser to speed up your healing can help reach this goal.
For example, some of the benefits of using laser and PT together include:
- An alternate solution to surgery
- Pre-surgery treatment
- Recovery after surgery
- Faster soft tissue healing
Click here to learn more about our LightForce Laser service or click here to learn about using laser and PT together.
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