On Sunday April 14th a newspaper article about our struggle with CTE appeared in the Deseret News out of Salt Lake City. First online, and then in the Monday paper, the article by Lee Benson, chronicled our journey to find a treatment that actually worked for the symptoms my husband was suffering from. Science was adamant that no effective intervention existed, especially if the cause was CTE. However, it was during our mission to Boston that we found photobiomodulation (PBM) a technology that, while not new, had not been tried on an ex-football player suffering from probable CTE. The treatments worked for Larry in ways we never imagined and we wanted the article to give hope to others with brain injury, but we really weren’t prepared for the kind of response we received.
Traffic on our blog exploded (FootballandtheBrain.com) and we received emails from wives, daughters, fathers, mothers and ex-players from across the country. Each letter, while discussing unique stories, had a common theme: the devastation of possible CTE, or traumatic brain injury caused by football, as well as hockey, soccer, extreme sports, and accidents. The sadness and despair of loved ones and families dealing with the results of the disease/injuries were palpable. We understood exactly what they were going through. We’d been on the same path. Each letter pleaded for more information on the Vielight device we were using. How much does it cost, does it really work? We directed their questions to Vielight.com, the website of the company that makes the light headset Larry uses. We encouraged them to look at the research listed there and get back to us with any questions. We cannot guarantee anything; all we can tell them is that Larry’s results have given us our life back and we hope they have the same success.
We just share our story and remind them that we make no money on the sale of the devices. We just feel it is our mission to get this information into the hands of every ex-player who is suffering. And after that, getting it into the hands of coaches, trainers and current players everywhere. Why wait until the disease has progressed to the point of symptoms (there are huge advantages to using PBM as a player – more to come)? We truly believe photobiomodulation could save individual lives, save families, and even save the sport of football from itself.
In Larry’s next post he will go into great detail discussing his specific results of each of the neurocognitive tests affected by the photobiomodulation treatments.
Football and the Brain 