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Laser therapy and sports medicine - A match made in heaven?

Sports Medicine and Laser Therapy: A Match Made in Heaven?

If you’re an orthopedic surgeon who’s been keeping up with the latest science in sports medicine, then you know that laser therapy is one treatment option that’s been gaining a lot of traction lately.

In the past, recovering from sports injuries has often been an agonizingly slow process, so the athlete feels both the pain from the injury and the pain from being kept from the playing field. Laser therapy has been shown to have immense value in treating these kinds of injuries, and it helps athletes get back to their sport much faster.

Common sports injuries treated with laser therapy

One of the real benefits of laser therapy is that it can be used to treat almost any part of the body. One area where laser therapy has been shown to be especially effective is in treating the many different forms of tendonitis. Tendonitis can appear in the knees, hips, back, hands, wrists, or shoulders, and it often takes its name from the sport where the injury occurred (e.g., tennis elbow, jumper’s knee, golfer’s elbow, etc.).

Plantar fasciitis is another common injury that athletes sustain, and laser therapy has proven to be very helpful in reducing the associated pain and inflammation. Baseball players, especially pitchers who may deliver 100 high-speed pitches to batters during a game, frequently sustain rotator cuff injuries. Studies show that laser therapy helps manage these injuries better and gets athletes back in the game faster than they would have with other treatments.

Latest research on laser therapy/sports injuries

Research on low-level laser therapy shows that it produces consistent results in treating a wide variety of sports injuries. The typical response of your body to any kind of injury in sports is an inflammatory stage, during which new cells are generated and new tissues are produced. This inflammatory stage can go on for quite some time since a great deal of new tissue and cells may be required. This is where laser therapy can help in a major way. It expedites the inflammatory stage and accelerates the entire healing process so that mobility and functionality can be restored much more quickly.

Research has shown that a great many sports injuries respond very well to treatment by low-level laser therapy. Some of the injuries that have been dramatically improved by laser therapy include tennis elbow, ligament damage, jumper’s knee, frozen shoulder, muscle strains, bursitis, swimmer’s shoulder, and inflammation of the tendon sheath. Research as far back as 2014 has also shown that laser therapy can be very useful in helping an athlete recover from surgery since pain and inflammation can be reduced significantly. 

A match made in Heaven

While research is ongoing, it seems apparent already that laser therapy can be one of the most effective treatments for sports injuries. Many athletes have already experienced the benefits of quicker recovery and a faster return to their sport.


OrthoLazer Orthopedic Laser Centers offer patients and their doctors an innovative and effective alternative pain management option to treat acute and chronic orthopedic conditions. Founded by Dr. Scott Sigman – the original opioid-sparing surgeon – our centers further his mission of providing his patients with non-operative and non-opioid treatment options. If you’d like more information about OrthoLazer, please visit our website at ortholazer.com.

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