Far Infrared
Heat Therapy for Pain Relief
New clinical research on pain offers evidence to
establish a novel class of pain “heat responsive
pain” or HRP, which encompasses several common
pain conditions that can be treated with the use of
heat therapy. Researchers studying HRP have observed
remarkable therapeutic benefits by using continuous
low level heat therapy for treating lower back, upper
body and menstrual pain, all conditions that fall under
the new HRP classification.
“For centuries healthcare providers have used
topical heat to relieve minor aches and pains, but
today we are just beginning to understand the full
range of therapeutic benefits that heat offers,” said
pain expert Peter Vicente, Ph.D., past president of
the American Pain Society and Clinical Health Psychologist,
Riverhills Healthcare, Cincinnati, OH. “Through
new clinical research, we have found that heat activates
complex neurological, vascular and metabolic mechanisms
to mediate the transmission of pain signals and effectively
provide relief for a variety of pain conditions.”
Rheumatoid Arthritis
A case study reported in Sweden involved a 70 year-old
man who had rheumatoid arthritis secondary to acute
rheumatic fever. He had reached his toxic limit of
gold injections and his erythrocyte sedimentation rate
(ESR) was still 125. After using a far infrared sauna
for less than five months, his ESR was down to 11.
A rheumatologist worked with a 14 year-old Swedish
girl who had difficulty walking downstairs due to knee
pain from the age of eight. This therapist told her
mother the girl would be in a wheelchair within two
years if she did not begin gold corticosteroid therapy.
After three far infrared
sauna treatments, she began to become more agile
and subsequently took up folk dancing without the aid
of conventional approaches. A clinical study in Japan
reported a successful solution for seven out of seven
cases of rheumatoid arthritis treated with whole body
far infrared therapy.
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