My Skin Was a Mess. Why I Still Use Red Light Therapy Five Years Later
I’ve been hearing a lot about red light therapy lately. I’ve been using my little MitoMini for at least five years, and it still gets used nearly every day. I bought it because my skin was a mess.
At its worst, parts of me looked as though the skin had been burned off. I can’t even tell you where it started. My back was bad for a long time—so bad I couldn’t sleep on it. I had trouble on my arms, my upper and lower legs, and especially my shins.
I’ve wondered whether mercury exposure had something to do with it. That’s what I believe, but I can’t prove it. I’ve also dealt with allergies and skin trouble since I was a kid.
Over the years, I used a lot of cortisone cream to get relief from itching that could drive me crazy. I knew it could thin the skin, but when you’re itching that badly, you want it to stop. I used it more liberally than I was told to, and I didn’t wash it off my hands afterward. The skin on my hands is thin now too. I play conga drums, and sometimes it hurts like hell.
Why I bought my own light
I didn’t learn about red light therapy from a skin specialist. I’m a biohacker, dude. I’ve spent years reading, following natural health people, and looking for answers to what was going on with my body. Red light was already on my radar.
A skin specialist told me he had treatments available. As I remember it, I’d have to go in and pay something like $40 or $50 for a session that felt about thirty seconds long. I might have the exact time or price wrong, but I remember thinking: Why would I keep paying for that when I could get a light of my own?
So I bought the MitoMini. It was the one I could afford—roughly $250 US, if I remember correctly.
The trade-off with a small light is obvious once you start using it: it only covers so much of you at a time. I move it from place to place. I’ve used it on my legs, back, arms, chest, face and the bottoms of my feet.
Most mornings, I have my coffee and read the paper with the light on my feet. I also hang it above my bed and move the bed, which is on wheels, until I’m underneath it where I want to be. It takes time to work around the body with a panel this size. But I bought what I could afford, and I’ve made good use of it.
That overhead arrangement is my own setup, not instructions for mounting a light. Anyone using a panel should make sure it’s supported as its maker directs.
What’s coming out of the light?
My MitoMini has red light and near-infrared light, and I use both together. The label on the back tells us exactly what this one has: 660 nm red light and 850 nm near-infrared light, in equal proportions. Red is the light you can see. Near-infrared is mostly invisible to your eyes.
Researchers call this kind of light treatment photobiomodulation. There’s research on its use for some skin conditions and wound healing, though the evidence varies depending on what’s being treated. That research doesn’t prove what happened to my skin. I can only tell you what I’ve experienced.
What I’ve noticed
My skin looks and feels a hell of a lot better than it did at its worst. People have even told me it looks pretty good. I find that hard to believe sometimes, knowing what it used to look like.
I believe the red light has helped me a great deal. Can I prove how much of the improvement came from the light, rather than time or other things I’ve done? No. But I bought that panel for my skin, I’ve kept using it for at least five years, and I still feel it helps me today. For me, it’s been a game changer.
I’ve sometimes stayed under it longer than the recommended sessions. I haven’t noticed an obvious problem from my own use, but that doesn’t establish that longer is better or that nobody gets side effects. If you get a light, read the directions for your model, including the instructions about session length and protecting your eyes.
The other cost is time. With a small panel, you’re forever shifting it around. Then again, dealing with miserable skin takes up a lot of your life too. I’d rather spend some of that time doing something I feel has helped.
And the thing is tough. Mine once fell four or five feet onto a hardwood floor. Nothing broke, and it still works. I wouldn’t advise testing one that way, but I’ve been very happy with what I bought.
Red light therapy may not do for someone else what I believe it’s done for me. I wouldn’t promise that. I just know what my skin was like, what it’s like now, and how often I still reach for that little light. That’s why I wanted to tell you about it.
If you want to look at the company’s small panels, Mito Red Light sells a current MitoMIN 2.0. Mine is an older MitoMini, so I’m showing you my own photos rather than pretending the new model is exactly the one I bought.
