A FEW YEARS AGO A FRIEND OF MINE IN CHICAGO BADLY HURT HIS LEG before summer and reacted like it was the end of the world. No one likes to be injured, but I was perplexed why he was so devastated and even angry.
He told me that during the winters, when he is stuck indoors, he looks forward to sunshine and getting back on the golf course and pickleball court before being locked away again during the cold weather. He feared this injury would make him miss his shot at enjoying the sunshine while he spent months recovering.
Fortunately, I was able to get him in with a doctor I had trained in combining chiropractic with high-energy, nonthermal lasers, and he was back to playing 50% faster than was expected. He was thrilled to have half his summer to enjoy.
How many of your patients would feel the same? How many have suddenly ramped up their activity after being inactive and either gotten injured or felt a drop-off in their performance and struggled with stiffness and pain? How many would love to have a way to prevent injuries, enhance performance, and accelerate recovery times if they did get hurt?
This is a great time to position your office as the go-to doctor to help your patients enjoy a healthy and active summer filled with the sports they love and play at a higher level than ever before if they come in for regular care. The problem is that so many patients only think of chiropractors as being good for pain and have a poor understanding of how we can enhance their performance and prevent injuries.
For 21 years, I have used a combination of chiropractic adjustments and high-energy red, violet, and green lasers on patients, including players from the Seattle Seahawks, L.A. Dodgers, and USC. I recently was invited to the L.A. Lakers’ training facility to demonstrate my techniques to their training staff.
For a demo, I worked on NBA champion Kurt Rambis’ old shoulder injury. In a 10-minute session, he was shocked at how much his range of motion changed, and the throbbing pain dropped. It had been constant, and no other therapy had helped to this level.
Randy Flores, the strength and conditioning coach, had knee pain only with heavy squats. I did one session with the laser with a neurorecalibration technique, and he was able to squat his max again pain-free.
They then wanted to use Randy’s wife, Bethany Flores, a six-time professional competing CrossFit athlete, as a laser guinea pig.
Bethany had chronic back pain and plantar fasciitis that kept her out of the world championships in 2022. She had tried everything, including chiropractic, physical therapy, red light therapy, acupuncture, and more. Nothing helped, and she was at a constant 8/10 pain level.
We had her use a three-diode 635 nm scanning laser in my office for 20 minutes twice weekly. This laser has been shown in a randomized, double-blind study versus red light to decrease chronic low back pain by an average of 58% after eight sessions, leading to an additional 17.5% improvement 12 months after the sessions were stopped.1
At home, she used a green and violet handheld laser that our peer-reviewed paper showed long-term pain reduction and range of motion improvement for chronic neck and shoulder pain.2 She did this for eight weeks and was able to compete pain-free and finish 14th in the world.
The next year, she repeated the protocol. She finished first in the U.S. and fourth in the world, which was quite a change from being unable to compete to achieving the top position in America.
Bethany noted that in addition to the decrease in pain, the laser gave her enhanced mental focus, enhanced endurance, and enhanced recovery because her soreness was greatly reduced.
Now, here’s the good news for those of you already incorporating high-energy, nonthermal lasers in your office along with chiropractic and an opportunity for those of you who have not added it yet. Bethany loved the results of using laser so much that she is partnering with us for the next three years to promote the benefits of laser to her Instagram followers, which currently is over 500k with high post engagement.
This means that many people across the U.S. will see her posts and be looking for doctors who can do the same therapy. These athletes are highly motivated, and you will not have to “close” them on a regular program of chiropractic and laser because they will ask you what is the best visit frequency to maximize performance and recovery.
Chiropractic adjustments have been shown to enhance golf swing3 better than stretching alone and enhance grip strength in Judo athletes. It’s also helped the health and recovery of NFL players,4 but how many of your patients are aware of that?
Low-level class 2 and 3 lasers have been shown to enhance sports performance to a level that the study’s authors said was similar to if they had taken performance-enhancing drugs.5 In their conclusion, the authors said they were not sure that laser should be allowed in international competitions like the Olympics because it gave the athletes a clear, unfair advantage.
Who doesn’t want such an advantage? Whether you are a professional athlete or you just want to compete better than your friends on the golf course or pickleball court, we all want to do our best. You can help your patients stay healthy and at peak performance when you combine the timeless power of chiropractic adjustments with the latest evidence-based laser technology.
Dr. Kirk Gair has been in private practice since 1999 and using Erchonia cold lasers since 2004. He has treated elite athletes, including Super Bowl and MLB champions, as well as national record holders. His expertise in cold laser therapy and training in functional medicine and neurology attract patients from across the U.S. Dr. Gair has been featured in the documentary The Thyroid Secret and the bestselling book Hashimoto’s Protocol by Dr. Izabella Wentz, as well as on major health platforms and podcasts. To contact Dr. Gair, call (626) 922-1414, email [email protected], or visit LaserChiropractic.net.
1. Trevor SB, Travis MS, Steve S. Two randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of red 635nm low level laser for the treatment of low back pain. Ortho & Rheum Open Access J. 2021;17(3):555964. doi:10.19080/OROAJ.2021.17.555964.
2. Sammons T, Gair K, Silverman RG, Shanks S. Assessing the impact of high photon energy wavelengths on the treatment of chronic neck and shoulder pain. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2023 Oct 4:2023:6672019. doi: 10.1155/2023/6672019. PMID: 37829623; PMCID: PMC 10567292.
3. Costa SM, Chibana YE, Giavarotti L, Compagnoni DS, Shiono AH, Satie J, Bracher ES. Effect of spinal manipulative therapy with stretching compared with stretching alone on full-swing performance of golf players: a randomized pilot trial. J Chiropr Med. 2009 Dec;8(4):16570. doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2009.06.002. PMID: 19948307; PMCID: PMC2786229.
4. Lin AFC, Piong SZ, Wan WM, Li P, Chu VK, Chu EC. Unlocking athletic potential: the integration of chiropractic care into the sports industry and Its impact on the performance and health of athletes and economic growth in China and Hong Kong. Cureus. 2023 Apr 5;15(4):e37157. doi: 10.7759/cureus.37157. PMID: 37034139; PMCID: PMC10075015.
5. Ferraresi C, Huang YY, Hamblin MR. Photobiomodulation in human muscle tissue: an advantage in sports performance? J Biophotonics. 2016 Dec;9(ll-12):1273-1299. doi: 10.1002/jbio.201600176. Epub 2016 Nov 22. PMID: 27874264; PMCID: PMC5167494.
