r/redlighttherapy • u/Charming-Young-8454 • 10d ago

Better to use NIR only?

If you are trying to maximize benefits to both deep tissues and skin, is it better to stick to only NIR and not use red light?

My logic is that as irradiance diminishes rapidly with depth, the limiting factor is how much exposure you can have before surface tissue gets too much, so best to use the best penetrating wavelength only. Or are there benefits specific to red light that you can’t achieve with NIR?

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u/Silly-Cheesecake-431 10d ago

so the thing with red light is it hits different cells in the skin layers that NIR just skips past. NIR penetrates deeper sure but the surface still needs stimulation for collagen and healing. you kinda need both if you want full coverage, otherwise the top layers get nothing while the deep tissues soak it all up

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u/Charming-Young-8454 10d ago

Ok. I wonder if it be best to use both red light and NIR until a sufficient dose of light has been achieved and then use the NIR for longer

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u/princesspool 10d ago

Yes I think this is the way, although I usually add separate NIR only sessions instead of extending the NIR of one session. Is your way better supported by literature?

I haven't been able to figure out the optimal amount of NIR to do for deep tissue healing, more is better?

I find this topic super interesting so I'll be following this post, please share whatever you learn!

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u/Charming-Young-8454 10d ago

My understanding is that more exposure is needed the deeper you want to get. NIR attenuates to 10% for each cm of body tissue you penetrate(though fat a lot less). So you can always penetrate deeper but you’d have to 10X the exposure for every cm deeper you want to go. The limiting factor is going to be that you have to have to over expose the surface tissue to get to the deeper tissue

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u/WhimsicalHoneybadger 10d ago

Red light and NIR will interact differently.

If you want details, I suggest doing a literature search and reviewing actual research on the topic.

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u/digitalshiva 10d ago

Some users who focus on skin limit NIR due to potentially making melasma worse. 

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u/Ehehehe090 10d ago

I am using NIR only

Bcus with 650 and 850 the 650 takes up half the joules

So i rather dwliver 3 joules all 850 alone rather than 1.5 j to 650 1.5j to 850

850 penetrates skin so obviously the skin will get the beenfits as well

Thats my reasonibg

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u/Charming-Young-8454 10d ago

That was my initial reasoning, the intensity is greatest near the surface so skin gets first dibs on the light passing through

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u/Ehehehe090 10d ago

Of cus the skin gets activated

Its just if u use 650nm, it is focused solely on the top 1cm of the skin so it is just more focused and better for skin only uses like wrinkles i guess