Case studies in migraine & other headache pain relief
Summary
Research shows that green light can relieve migraine and other headache pain, with some exceptions.
MyGreen makes more powerful and programmable green LED phototherapy devices than any tested in laboratory trials.
Reports from MyGreen customers indicate greater efficacy for a broader range of headaches than currently reported in the literature, and two types of headaches that do not respond to green light: 1) High estrogen headaches, and 2) hangovers.
The Discovery of Green Light for Migraine Pain Relief
The original study that discovered the analgesic effects of green light for migraine pain relief was published in 2016 by a team of scientists and medical doctors from Professor Rami Burstein's lab at Harvard Medical School. The researchers recruited patients who reported to a hospital in Boston MA complaining of migraine symptoms. Rather than medication or other treatments, these patients were exposed to several different wavelengths of light, including white, blue (447nm), green (530 nm), amber (590nm), and red (627nm). In each case, patients kept their eyes open during the exposures, and looked directly into the light, which varied in in tensity from dim to what would be equivalent to a normally lit office space.
In the case of every wavelength, except green, patients reported increased pain associated with photophobia. The green relief effect reported was modest, but significant. For example, using a Visual Analog Scale (VAS), between 10-20% of patients reported improvement during green light exposure (Noseda et al. 2016).
It took five years for a research group led by Mohab M Ibrahim, MD/PhD at the University of Arizona, to improve on the Harvard results. Instead of studying patients in a hospital setting under varying wavelengths, the Arizona team purchased green (525nm) LED party light strips from an online vendor and placed black electrical tape over two out of three light diodes for the entire length of the strip to achieve their target intensity. They distributed the makeshift devices to their research subjects for use at home, with instructions to use it in a darkened room (e.g., closet) for a minimum of one hour and not more than two hours per day at the same time every day. The Arizona study required subjects to keep their eyes open, but avoid staring directly into the green lights.
The results were astounding. All but one patient reported a reduction in the frequency of headaches, and 15% of the subjects reported complete absence of headaches during the two month study period. Moreover, subjects reported that when headaches did occur, they were on average 60% less painful.
Problems With Translation to Clinical Practice
While the Harvard team went to market with a green LED lamp that allows users to control intensity, it's effective but under powered. Users must stare at the Harvard lamp for a minimum of 45 minutes, and the last thing anyone wants to do when they're suffering a migraine attack is hold their eyes open for any length of time.
By contrast, the Arizona team doesn't have a commercial product to offer. Anyone can buy LED party light strips, after all. The problem with the dark-closet, party-light approach is that it requires at least an hour a day sitting in a dark closet doing practically nothing at the same time every single day. Most migraineurs want to be free of their afflication, rather than have to structure their whole day around it.
MyGreen Technology - AJ Kay's story
Like many great inventions, the MyGreen Lantern was a fortunate accident. To create it, I asked a red light manufacturer to replicate their red light, but with green LED's instead of red. The result was much, much brighter than any green light that had ever been tested previously.
I thought it was too bright... but I don't get headaches, so what do I know?
AJ Kay does get headaches. And when she tried the first MyGreen prototype, she used it differently than any other research team had ever tested. She held the lantern right in front of her face and closed her eyes.
"This feels really good," she told me. "My headache was about a 6 (out of 10) and no I'd say I'm at about a 2."
I realized that the extra power in the MyGreen Lantern was a big advantage. My closing her eyes, AJ blocked out all the other wavelengths of light that can amplified headache pain. However, the green light was so strong and so close to her face that some of it -- maybe 30% -- still penetrated the eyelids and reached the retina. As a result, she got immediate and lasting pain relief, instead of having to wait almost an hour.
AJ's migraines follow a typical pattern that begins with visual disturbances, including aura. That's how she knows that he's going to be in for several hours, and sometimes even two days, of excruiciating pain, photophobia, and brain fog.
The next time she experienced the visual disturbances, I asked her to tried the MyGreen Goggles. With four wavelengths instead of two, and individually adjustable intensity sliders, the Googles are the most programmable and experimental green phototherapy technology on the market, and I was thinking she'd be able to play around with the settings and maybe discover what wavelengths and settings work best for her.
I was wrong. She cranked every wavelength up to the maximum and wore the Goggles for about 20 minutes straight.
An amazing thing happened.
After 20 minutes with the MyGreen Goggles, she was pain-free. Her migraine pattern continued to progress without the pain. She experienced all the usual symptoms, including the brain fog, but no pain.
Product Reviews Praise MyGreen
Since then, hundreds of people have tried either the MyGreen Lantern, or the MyGreen Googles. Many of them have left product reviews praising their experiences. All of these reviews are real and none of them are compensated or paid for. Here's a sampling:
A consistent theme in the feedback I get from customers is that they no longer require as much medication, including botox, to manage migraine pain. Using their MyGreen for about ten minutes a day has cut the frequency and severity of their headaches to the point at which they no longer need their meds at all, or they can cut way back. Given the adverse side effects of headache pain medications, MyGreen customers are ecstatic.
Case Studies in Green Light Phototherapy
Perhaps the most convincing evidence of MyGreen efficacy comes not from customers, but from the doctors that supervise their treatment. In this respect, Jacob Perkins DC has been instrumental in compiling case studies on the patients he treats at his Summit Sport & Spine clinic in Lehi UT. Dr. Perkins uses the MyGreen Lantern on all his headache patients, with excellent results. He finds that the range of headaches that respond to MyGreen is much broader than just migraine. For example, he has treated:
A pre-school age young girl fell off playgrounf equipment and suffered a concussion. She experienced persistence and painful headaches for which her medical doctors recommended medication. Her parents were reluctant to administer pharmaceuticals to a child so young. Instead, Dr. Perkins treated her with ten minutes of MyGreen Lantern phototherapy. He headache resolved completely, and she has not experienced them since.
A 62yo male experienced a migraine so serious that he lost vision in his right eye, which was consistent with his established pattern of migraine. He was accustomed to taking several apin medications to dull the persistent pain that typically lasted around two days. Instead, Dr. Perkins treated him with MyGreen Lantern. After ten minutes, his pain was reduced and his vision restored. After another ten minutes, he was without pain. Moreover, in the four weeks since treatment, he has not experienced a single headache.
A highschool football player suffered a concussion during a game and experienced persistent headaches for days afterward. After 10 minutes of MyGreen treatment, his headache symptoms were completely resolved and they never came back.
MyGreen Failures
These medically supervised case studies are remarkable in that patients recieved rapid and lasting pain relief from persistent and debilitating headache pain. However, not all MyGreen customers experience the same success.
One of the consistent patterns that has emerged is among pre-menopausal women who are experiencing headaches during parts of their cycle characterized by high estrogen. At least three women have tried green light, and each of them report they experience no relief. That's sufficient for me to refrain from recommending green light phototherapy for high estrogen headaches. Although there's no harm in trying, prudence suggests that expectations in these cases should remain low. In these cases, the women might benefit from the hormone-balancing effects of an ice bath, instead of green light.
Two other green light failures have been reported to me. The first was a friend who tried the MyGreen Lantern to relieve the headache pain caused by a hangover. It didn't work. The second was a report from a man who bought two Lanterns, one for his Mom and one for his sister, both of whom suffered from vestibular migraine (i.e., dizziness or vertigo, with or without pain). He reported that neither experienced relief that justifed the expense of the Lantern and he returned them for a refund.
Lastly, some people do not report a complete resolution of pain. Rather, they say that green phototherapy helps take the edge off, or reduces their self-reported severity score, or reduces their need for medication. In each one of these cases, and there are now almost half a dozen, the patients elected to continue green phototherapy, given that even a marginal improvement was worth the low cost of treatment.
References
Noseda R, Bernstein CA, Nir RR, Lee AJ, Fulton AB, Bertisch SM, Hovaguimian A, Cestari DM, Saavedra-Walker R, Borsook D, Doran BL. Migraine photophobia originating in cone-driven retinal pathways. Brain. 2016 Jul 1;139(7):1971-86.
Palmer SE, Schloss KB. An ecological valence theory of human color preference. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2010 May 11;107(19):8877-82.
About the Author
Thomas P Seager, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University. Seager co-invented MyGreen Lantern, and MyGreen Goggles, co-founded the Morozko Forge ice bath company and is an expert in building machines that simulate the experiences in Nature that build physiological and psychological resilience.
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