The infrabed

[A Jay]

Sorry to hear this.
I don't have anything else to add, just try the advices that you received and I wish you a speedy recovery, Worldbridger!

I'd also like to wish you a speedy recovery, worldbridger!

I had a canning accident a number of years ago and got second degree burns from boiling hot fat on my arm and face, so I understand the pain you're going through. I don't have any other advice, but would second the recommendation for reiki and DMSO.

 

[SeekinTruth]

Sorry to hear this.
I don't have anything else to add, just try the advices that you received and I wish you a speedy recovery, Worldbridger!

I'd also like to wish you a speedy recovery, worldbridger!

I had a canning accident a number of years ago and got second degree burns from boiling hot fat on my arm and face, so I understand the pain you're going through. I don't have any other advice, but would second the recommendation for reiki and DMSO.

Want to wish you a speedy recovery too, worldbrider.

Also wanted to note that there is supposed to be a biphasic dose effect with light therapy, we should keep in mind that overdosing will eliminate the benefits. Not much is know about this aspect, I think, and many say it really applies on a cellular level only (could be temperature increase in the cell leading to decreased cell function, and the like), but still better to keep it in mind. I do light therapy every other day, just to be sure (and not go overboard with dosage in any one session). FWIW.

 

[hlat]

I ordered this NIR device, reVive Light Therapy Pain System. It says it uses 56 lights in 880nm and 4 lights in 660nm.
_https://www.target.com/p/revive-153-light-therapy-pain-system/-/A-15646399

I think a potential problem is that the 880nm wavelength is not in the optimal range.

The figure above indicates wavelengths 610-625, 660-690, 750-770, and 815-860 nm are the best wavelengths.

 

[nicklebleu]

Seems that if you're using a couple of those near IR spots, you might as well leave the glass plate on and just put it next to the skin, right?

You can safely leave the glass on the IR spot, as the transmission of 850nm IR light through ordinary silica glass is almost 100%.

And yes, the nearer to the skin, the better the penetration, as the 'density" of the light (power/ area) decreases as you increase the distance from the source. This however is compensated somewhat by exposing the area to more LEDs from the array, so I guess there is a "sweet spot" for any given target. I would guess that the smaller the target area, the more you benefit from removing it a little bit further from the source, as more LEDs from the array will hit it.

 

[worldbridger]

Thanks SeekinTruth and A Jay. The "vampire effect" is almost gone, now the blisters, wrinkled skin and colors start to show. But I'm ok, just realizing how much I use my hands.

I need to build up some courage to do another round of lard, and stay in the kitchen the whole time, not reading SOTT!

Yes, the sweet spot answer is out there. There are many factors involved I think, and most of them I don't know. When I use my NIR (8x6 inches/20x16 cm and 20mW/cm2) I try keep within the mentioned deep tissue level of 30 to 40 J/cm2 (I have chronic pain/neuropathy), I think I even read somewhere 50 to 60, either on a certain area or totally, per day. I've only used it a couple of days so no conclusion yet.

 

[Pierre]

Seems that if you're using a couple of those near IR spots, you might as well leave the glass plate on and just put it next to the skin, right?

You can safely leave the glass on the IR spot, as the transmission of 850nm IR light through ordinary silica glass is almost 100%.

And yes, the nearer to the skin, the better the penetration, as the 'density" of the light (power/ area) decreases as you increase the distance from the source. This however is compensated somewhat by exposing the area to more LEDs from the array, so I guess there is a "sweet spot" for any given target. I would guess that the smaller the target area, the more you benefit from removing it a little bit further from the source, as more LEDs from the array will hit it.

That's the way I understand it too. If the spotlight is close, the treated area will be smaller but also deeper. Inversely, if the spotlight is far away you'll treat a larger area but the radiation won't go this deep (for the same exposure time).

As Nicklebleu wrote, glass doesn't absorb NIR. This is also true for air: only 10% of NIR is absorbed by the atmosphere although it's dozens of miles thick, so air absorption is neglectable whether the spotlight is 1 inch or two feet away.

 

[monotonic]

The datasheet for a given LED will usually give the angle of the cone of light. Generally it is near 20 degrees.

By my guesstimations, for 20 degree LEDs, for something about the size of a hand you have inverse square law if you are further away than 3x the spotlight is wide. Closer than this distance, you have about the same intensity regardless of distance (because the light gained by getting closer to the emitters is countered by the light lost by passing outside of the light beams from some LEDs). You should not get closer than about 1.4cm to the spotlight (not much chance of that), because at this point the light cones stop overlapping and there will be dark spots in the exposed area.

The light cone from the spotlight expands by about the same amount as the distance from the spotlight. So if the amount of skin you want to cover is smaller than the spotlight, then just put the spotlight right next to it or within 2x the spotlight's width if you want the maximum exposure possible (but maybe not closer than 1.4cm). But if for instance you wanted to cover your whole body, and you were 160cm tall, you would want to be about 160cm from the spotlight.

These figures may need some adjustment depending on which LEDs are used in the spotlight. If the spotlight manual describes the shape of the light beam, that would help.

A spotlight with a very narrow beam might be more useful and allow you to be further from it without as much reduction in exposure.

 

[Persej]

The "vampire effect" is almost gone, now the blisters, wrinkled skin and colors start to show. But I'm ok, just realizing how much I use my hands.

If you still have the pain you could try Aloe Vera gel. It helpes me a lot with small burns and mosquito bytes. This is my favorite: https://www.esi.it/en/aloe-vera-gel-vit-and-tea-tree/

 

[hlat]

880 nm is not as good as 850 nm or 830 nm, according to this source.

_http://heelspurs.com/led.html

880 nm verses 850 nm
There are some companies that claim 880 is "the best" frequency, but it appears 880 is absolutely not as good as 850 or 830 nm LEDs. 880 LEDs are putting out frequencies in the range of 870 to 890 and are getting blocked 25% more by water absorption than 850 and the biological response to 880 nm is much less than at 850 nm

 

[hlat]

But if for instance you wanted to cover your whole body, and you were 160cm tall, you would want to be about 160cm from the spotlight.

I thought the idea is to get the NIR very close to the body. Being over a meter away seems too far.

 

[Bobo08]

But if for instance you wanted to cover your whole body, and you were 160cm tall, you would want to be about 160cm from the spotlight.

I thought the idea is to get the NIR very close to the body. Being over a meter away seems too far.

Yes. I think it's better to get the whole beam from the floodlight onto your body than to cover the whole body, but only with a fraction of the beam. Most floodlights have beam with 30 or 45 degrees angle. So assuming that you can aim it at the center of your body, it should be no further away than half the width of your body. This doesn't take into account the width of the floodlight itself, which makes the optimal distance even shorter.

I personally find it's easiest to put the floodlight directly on the skin or as close as possible.

 

[Zasino]

But if for instance you wanted to cover your whole body, and you were 160cm tall, you would want to be about 160cm from the spotlight.

I thought the idea is to get the NIR very close to the body. Being over a meter away seems too far.

Yes. I think it's better to get the whole beam from the floodlight onto your body than to cover the whole body, but only with a fraction of the beam. Most floodlights have beam with 30 or 45 degrees angle. So assuming that you can aim it at the center of your body, it should be no further away than half the width of your body. This doesn't take into account the width of the floodlight itself, which makes the optimal distance even shorter.

I personally find it's easiest to put the floodlight directly on the skin or as close as possible.

I believe there is a misconception around distance of the IR source and penetration depth.
Penetration depth is a function of the material being penetrated (here: first air, then skin). An IR photon penetrates air effortlessly: as Pierre stated upthread, the many miles of atmosphere attenuate only 10% of IR. In contrast, our skin attenuates, i.e. absorbs 100% of it after a few millimeters of travel (doing good deeds in the process…).

What changes with distance is the amount of photons hitting a unit of skin area, and this follows the inverse square law: if we double the distance, only 1/4th the number of photons will hit a square cm of skin.
Corollary, to have the same effect (ie the same number of photons per cm2) with double the distance, either the light source needs to have 4x the power, or the exposure time must be quadrupled.

However, and somewhat counter-intuitively, the skin penetration depth remains constant with any setup. In short, putting the light source closer to the skin does not make it work "deeper". OSIT

 

[gdpetti]

Well, this one has a stated 60degree angle which is wide enough to cover a good section of the body... at 7.5inch (casing) but the LEDs are about 6.5 inches in width... it seems that if one had 3 of these to cover the body, the goal would be to keep them close enough to the body for maximum effectiveness... So, doesn't it seem that around 7-8 inches would play into this 60degree spread and cover the body area from side to side the best, unless you wanted more intensity in a specific spot in the body, so you would just keep it right next to the skin itself...no angle dispersal.... with the glass cover on, that would seem ok, but for general use, at that 60degree spread, isn't 7-8 inches above the body about right? Three of them should about cover the body... they are adjustable for angled spread as needed of course....

I was thinking that if they were set on a shelf type structure above the body, you could move around under it easier for entrance/exit and positioning for top,bottom, side coverage. Doesn't that distance of 7-8 inches sound about right?

 

[monotonic]

If you say that being closer is still better, then the argument must be that more intense IR over a smaller patch of skin will be more effective for the whole body. It's possible there is a nuking effect where one dose of intense IR is more effective than an equivalent dose of less intense IR (equivalent meaning the same total IR light exposure). In which case what you want would be to be relatively close to the spotlight, and change positions occasionally.

I think 60 degrees for the spotlight would mean 30 degrees per LED, which means you want to be closer to the spotlight than about half the area you want to expose. So if you want to expose your entire body you would want to be about 80cm away if you were 160cm tall. However the intensity at this distance will be higher in the middle and about half at the edges.

The reduction in exposure due to spotlight width decreases the further you get from the IR lamp.

This has me thinking about optimal LED arrangements for exposure at a distance. One could curve the LED panel to shape the beam. In this case a tube of LED strips that one get inside makes a lot of sense, it would maximize the efficiency of delivery.

 

[SeekinTruth]

I think that a lot of these issues aren't really worked out by the newly growing science. As far as I understand, the tissues being penetrated will also need to be considered for deeper irradiation applications (and again, I don't think the "science is standardized yet", so to speak). One advantage to the unit I got is that it tells the power density at different distances in the usual mW/cm2. The wrinkle is that it has four wavelengths in one unit - 2 visible, 620, 670, and two IR, 760 and 830 nm. So if you just go by the given power density (PD) data, for treating deeper tissues/organs, etc., how much of PD should be cut down, for example to half? (due to the visible red not penetrating more than a couple of mm, whereas the NIR goes several cm into tissue). E.G. at 5 cm, the PD is 200mW/cm2. There are other units from the same company with just one wavelength which makes getting the dosage right easier.

But on top of everything else, the dosage (PD x time in sec. x .001 to get Jules/cm2 - not mJ/cm2) is also a very approximate abstraction, as dosage should probably be for volume of cells irradiated (approx.) - that is J/cm3. But right now there isn't enough maturation in this field to get better and more standard approaches to all factors. The thousands of studies showing specific treatments range in dosages from a few to 100 or 200 J/cm2 (and again very little is standardized technically). Also, there are systemic benefits that come from treating a specific area. FWIW.