Red Light Therapy in Lake Forest
You lie down. The bed closes around you in red light. Our Theralight 360 covers your whole body at once, a quiet recovery session that sits alongside the therapy plan doing the heavy lifting.
What is red light therapy?
Red light therapy, also called photobiomodulation, uses red and near infrared light to reach the cells under your skin. The light is absorbed by the mitochondria inside those cells, which respond by producing more ATP, the energy a cell runs its repair work on. Circulation in the area picks up, which means more oxygen and nutrients arriving and more waste leaving. Swelling settles. Tissue that is rebuilding gets better conditions to rebuild in. The devices used for this are cleared for the purpose, and the light itself produces no heat, so the experience is nothing like a tanning bed or a sauna. You feel the surface of your skin, and that is about it.
What makes ours different from a handheld unit is scale. We use a Theralight 360, a full body bed you lie inside, with panels above and around you so your legs, back, shoulders and hips are all covered in one session rather than one region at a time. That is the honest difference between this page and our cold laser therapy page, which describes light from the same family. Cold laser is a small probe your therapist holds on one specific sore tendon or joint. The Theralight bed is broad coverage for a whole body that is beat up, stiff, or working through recovery in several places at once. Red light is a recovery modality, not a replacement for care. It sits alongside a physical therapy plan of care built by a licensed physical therapist, and the plan is where the lasting change comes from.
Who it's for.
The bed suits people whose complaint is not confined to one small spot. If you could only point to a single tender tendon, targeted cold laser is the better use of your time. If it is several places, or all of you, this is the one.
Stiff joints in more than one place
Knees, a shoulder, hands, hips. When several joints ache at once, treating them one at a time is slow. Lying in the bed covers all of it in a single session, which is why it fits neatly into a week that already has therapy in it.
Bodies recovering from hard work or surgery
Muscle soreness after a heavy week of training, a strain that is still grumbling, tissue healing after an operation. Red light supports circulation and cell energy across the whole area rather than one point of it.
People who want recovery without another appointment on the table
Nothing is done to you here. You lie down and let the light work while you rest. For people already using their therapy hour for hands-on treatment, the bed adds recovery without adding effort.
What a session in our Lake Forest studio is like.
There is very little to it, which is the point. Here is the whole thing, start to finish.
A quick word about what hurts
Before your first session we talk about what is going on and where, and if you are already a patient here, your therapist decides how the bed fits into the plan you are on. Coming in with a prescription from your physician is common and welcome.
You get in and lie down
The bed opens, you get in, and the panels light up around you in deep red. It is bright. It does not get hot, it does not hum, and nothing touches you. Most people close their eyes and treat it as the quietest part of their week.
Back out and on with your day
You get up and go. There is no recovery period, no cool down, nothing to wash off. Some people book the bed before their therapy session so they arrive to the table already loose, and others use it after as a way to close out the work.
Light only reaches what it can land on, so most people wear as little as they are comfortable in, and shorts and a tank top work fine if that suits you better. The bed produces no heat, so you will not sweat and you do not need a change of clothes. If you prefer to keep your eyes closed under the panels, do that.
Came here w/PT prescription for arthritis in my knees and L shoulder. I love the service the red light therapy truly helps!
Where to go next.
Manual Therapy
Hands-on treatment of stiff joints and tight tissue, the part of the plan the bed supports rather than replaces.
Sports Rehab
Rehab for athletes who need to get back to training, and the recovery habits that keep them there.
Back Pain & Sciatica
Our approach to a stiff, painful back and the nerve symptoms that can travel down the leg with it.