For most people suffering from chronic pain, the treatment without surgery would be ideal. There are therapies and treatments not involving surgery can now be used to reduce pain but recent study has shown how light treatment can be effective when it comes to managing chronic pain.
In the previous studies, light treatment has already been used to reduce and manage depression but a research performed by Helen J. Burgess, PhD Director, Biological Rhythms Research Laboratory, Professor, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Rush University Medical Center that has tested if light treatment can be used to treat people with chronic pain.
The experiment involved ten women with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by muscle pain, fatigue, sleeping problems and painful joints. The study was performed for two weeks where four participants were asked to try the light treatment in the evening, and the six other participants did the light treatment in the morning. After the sixth day of the treatment, all of the participants felt better but the ones who had the treatment in the morning were the ones who experienced a significant improvement with their condition. According to the results, they have experienced a 24 per cent improvement which is already substantial. In addition, the higher the exposure to the morning light, the better the results.
According to the researchers, this does not conclude that light treatment would be the only thing that's needed to manage chronic pain and further research and investigation are still needed. But the results from the studies could be useful to further do more tests for other types of pain. It would also require patients to commit a specific length of time to spend for the light treatment. The researchers are looking forward to test their theory in much larger studies to be able to maximize the benefits of using light treatment in managing other conditions.
