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Different flavors (frequencies) for different tissues 103

8.3 Best guesses IMPORTANT: Lasering a given injury will help
that injury, regardless of the technique, parameters,
So how can we find the best possible frequency to use treatment frequency, etc. (within a range of
for which tissues? After all, that’s why you started read- extremes, of course). But you are reading this book
ing this entire section in the first place. to find the best way to perform the most efficient
Disclaimer: here is where a little of the hand-waving treatments that produce the optimum clinical
starts, simply because, as I mentioned earlier, not a lot output. So the advice contained here aims to help
of people have put in the time/resources to find the you make the decisions to achieve just that. The
“right” answers. That said, there is some simple, sound advice is NOT intended to “poo-poo” any ideas or
science here that should help connect the dots. successes you may have previously experienced
The name of the game is allowing time for cells/tissue using parameters/techniques that stray from what
to dissipate heat between pulses. The most abundant you see here. Knowledge is power … keep that in
heat conductor in the body is water, which makes up mind.
about 80% of the body. But that 80% is a broad average.
The number fluctuates more than a little between the
different tissue types in the body, with bones having So if you have an injury that you know involves mul-
closer to 60% water content and soft tissue having tiple tissue types, and if you’re convinced that each of
closer to 90% water content. [270] More water (thermal these tissues has its own optimal “sweet spot” of pulse
conductor) means more heat transport, which means frequencies, then wouldn’t a blend of frequencies have
quicker dissipation. the best chance of treating that injury most effectively?
Theoretically, then, the tissue types that have lower I’ll leave that question open-ended, even though you
water content (e.g. bone) will need more time between know our answer to it. And if you fall in line with that
pulses to dissipate heat. More time between pulses way of thinking, there are several ways to accomplish
means fewer pulses per second, or lower frequencies. that. You can use a multi-phase approach where, within
Conversely, tissues with higher water content can dis- a given treatment, you vary the frequencies within the
sipate heat faster and so can support the use of higher range of “sweet spots” of the target tissues. You can
pulse frequencies where there is less time between instead do a multi-regimen approach where each treat-
pulses. ment in the regimen uses a given frequency throughout
And while tissues such as bone with low water the entire treatment, but where the frequency for the
content will, by this logic, not respond well to higher following treatment (whether it be the next day or the
frequencies (not enough time to dissipate heat), lower next week) is one that targets a different tissue. This may
frequencies (with longer dark periods) can be useful be useful in pathologies that require some serious anti-
across the board, even in soft tissues. But as the experi- inflammatory response earlier in the regimen before
ment bore out, there seems to be a “sweet spot” where you get to work on the tendons or bones or whatever.
an optimal effect can be achieved, and so to best target Whapp!!! That was the sound of my co-author
soft tissues, higher frequencies could be the “right” cracking my knuckles with her yardstick because I just
choice. Tendons and ligaments, being somewhere stepped out of line. She’s the clinician. So she’s the
between bone and soft tissue in their water content and expert. So she gives the advice on that.
therefore dissipation times, perhaps respond best to But I will make one more important clarifica-
mid-range frequencies. tion, which perhaps should have been made earlier.
Pathologies do NOT absorb light. Gross anatomies (i.e.
8.4 Little bit of this … little bit of that a shoulder or a hip) don’t even absorb light. Individual
cells absorb light. So the flavor of light you point at a
It’s finally time to put your clinician hat back on and pathology within a given anatomy depends on the cel-
realize that, for a given injury, there are probably mul- lular makeup of that tissue, not the pathology itself.
tiple tissue types affected. An arthritic hip, for example, And groups of cells (up to the macro-level of tissues)
has the bone (and any calcifications), the connective are oriented in such a way that they can be affected dif-
tissue, and the surrounding soft tissue. ferently within the timescales of laser pulses. So it is
even safe to say you can target individual tissue types.

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