@Johannes"You found red/infrared light therapy may have improved your ME/CFS. "
Yes, and I wrote may, because my other treatment is 2500 microgram vitamin D injection every 14 days and it helps to many of my symptoms. So does the sun light. But I am sure that red and NIR light really help. It just isn't the whole picture. This is more explained in my threds.
"Can I ask, on the ME/CFS scale of:
mild, moderate and severe, where were you before the light therapy, and where did you end up after the therapy?"
Ofcourse. But I don't know the criteria for mild, moderate or severe, so I will describe my symptoms to you before and after.
Before: I was bed bound 20 to 22hoursa day. I could barely walk with my dog twice a day about 10 minutes. Sometimes my wife had to go with the dog because I couldn't. But I always did one walk with the dog daily. I could barely cook 2 to 3 times a week and many times I had to ask my wife to help me with it. I became very tired from cooking. I could go to grocery store a couple of times a week. My grocery store is 3 minutes from my home with a car. I was too tired to wash my self but one to two times a week. I could watch tv for 3 hours a day and read things from the internet for 1 to 2 of hours a day. A cleaning person cleaned our house twice a month doing also dishes, because I couldn't. That is all I could do.
My symptoms were: easily overdoing physical and mental tasks and getting really tired, headache, irritation and angryness, depression, anxiousness, brainfog, problems to think and learn, memory problems, ichiness, dry eyes, horrible food sensitivity, and a dozen other symptoms. But some of these symptoms disappeared after being in sunshine in previous summers, so I started with vitamin D injections and it helped quite a lot with many symptoms but didn't take them away. Only when red light and NIR threapy was applied for appr. three months, they were gone. I had some blood tests that were below reference levels. Vitamin D didn't correct those.
After therapy, which is continuing every day unless I manage to be in the sunshine atleast an hour a day in the best UVB between 10 o'clock am to 5 o'clock pm.:
I will nowadays rest in the sofa for maybe 3 to 4 hours a day but that is because my back muscles are too week for me to sit or stand more than 3 to 4 hours at the time and then I need 30-60 mins rest. I walk with the dog 15 to 20 minutes twice a day. I cook every or every second day by myself. I go to a better grocery store 2 times a week (20 minutes drive with a car) and a couple of times a week to this other grocery store which is closer. I visit my friends 2 to 3 times a week for an hour. I wash myself every second day. I go for a hobby ( taking photoghraps) once a week. I can watch TV for six or more hours and read internet the most of the day. I wash dishes but let the cleaning person vacuum, wipe with wet cloth and change linens. I help my wife with smalI things. I sail with our sail boat, which is quite physical. When sailing, I will do most of these other things mentioned before, in addition of sailing. We sail with my wife every of every other day for 2 to 4 hours. When you sail, you read navionics charts continuously and compare it with the surrounding nature. We do not have electronic charts but paper ones. You drive your boat with a long stick (tiller) abd it demands muscle power. You have to concetrate to follow other people with their boats. You change sails, and trim them. You lift 7,5 kg anchor once a day etc. You walk in rocks.
I have no other symptoms but sometimes I am tired and if I do too much brain work, my thinking get sticky. My blood tests that were below the reference levels changed back to normal as they did in previous summers. These blood tests were: active vitamin D (D1.25), folate, homocysteine, ASAT(liver) and magnesium and my creatine became better but not normal. These were due to sunshine and propably also partly because I started to do more physical things.
"Which parts of you body did you apply the red/infrared light to? Was it only the head (if so, what part of the head)? Or did you apply it to the rest of the body? If so, which parts?"
Most of my body, that is from the top of my head to my knees and both sides, front and back. 10 minutes to front and 10 minutes to back twice daily.
"Did your gains in health from light therapy remain after you stopped it, or did they disappear once you stopped?"
I haven't stopped. I have my own PBM light unit and I will not stop. But on November when the sun is not shining enough, I will know how much the sunshine effected my health and how much red and NIR therapy helped. But somewhere in November, I will start to use narrow band UVB light lamps with red and NIR lamps to replace sunshine. If I get some symptoms back, then that means it is not only the red and NIR that is helping me but something else from the sunshine too. Only after that I will start my UVB therapy.
But I know already that red and NIR light therapy has helped me a lot because in spring, after three months of use, I started to feel a lot better and then I hadn't had sunshine because of being inside only. My symptoms started to gradually disappear in about six weeks after starting the therapy but after 3 months I was in quite good shape. But it was only after four months that I was at my best which hasn't changed yet.
