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Green light glasses

Green light therapy seems very “woo-woo” but there are biological reasons it might be helpful in diseases like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) (Image from Amazon).

Green light therapy. How much more “woo-woo” could you get? At first glance ( 🙂 ) it seems utterly implausible that being in the presence of green light could affect pain, but the few studies that have been done suggest it might help – and there are reasons, biologically, to think it could. With the generally poor performance of many pain drugs and the side effects they can cause, it’s easy to see why many people are giving such an easy and apparently side-effect therapy a try.

With a new green-light fibromyalgia trial, “Green Light-Based Analgesia – Novel Nonpharmacological Approach to Fibromyalgia Pain: A Pilot Study“, popping up, it was time to take a look at what green-light therapy is all about.

Why Green Light Therapy Might Help

Why might green light therapy help? For one, it may be able to increase energy and alertness by resetting one’s circadian rhythm (healthier bed and waking times), reduce pain, and enable better sleep by promoting melatonin production. Studies have shown that melatonin supplementation can be helpful in FM.

Green light therapy also appears to activate melanopsin, a light-sensitive neurotransmitter in the eye that interacts with a part of the brainstem that plays a role in processing pain. Perhaps most significantly, it stimulates the endogenous opioid system, causing an increase in both beta-endorphins and enkephalins – both of which appear to be reduced in FM.

Beta-endorphins are very effective at reducing pain; in fact, they’re 18 to 33 times better at that than morphine. They also play a major role in stimulating the descending pain inhibition pathways which appear to be broken in FM.

Since the endorphins kick in during exercise and may even be responsible for the “runner’s high”, it’s no surprise that an exercise study found them depleted in FM both before and after exercise. Plus, a small study found them reduced in both FM and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and another study found them reduced in ME/CFS. (They were not reduced in depression.) (Several early studies, however, did not find reduced cerebral spinal fluid or serum b-endorphin levels in FM).

Could Fibromyalgia Be A Low-Endorphin Disease?

Green light therapy may also be regulating serotonin – another feel-good chemical – via the serotonin-estrogen pathway that some believe plays a role in many pain disorders.

Study Evidence 

Not many studies have been done, but the results thus far are good.

A neuropathic pain animal model study found that green light therapy was able to turn down pain hypersensitivity. Digging deeper, a 2023 rodent study found that green light therapy increased endogenous opioid levels and reduced neuroinflammation. The authors recommended that “given the noninvasive nature of green light, this innovative therapy would be readily implementable in hospitals“.

A migraine study exposed patients who had not responded to migraine treatments to 1-2 hours daily of white light-emitting diodes for 10 weeks, followed by a 2-week washout period, followed by exposure for 1-2 hours daily to green light-emitting diodes for 10 weeks. It produced a dramatic reduction in episodic migraine days (7.9 to 2.4) and chronic migraine days (22.3 to 9.4). Plus, there are some indications that green light therapy may ease the sensitivity to light in migraine.

Psychotherapy conducted under green light also proved to be considerably more effective than that done under white light in a small study.

The Green-Light Fibromyalgia Studies

Green light strip

The green-light strip used in the study. Two of every three bulbs were covered.

Martin and Ibraham’s 2021 one-way crossover FM trial had the 21 patients use a 2-meter-long green LED light strip in a dark room for a minimum of 1 hour every day, with the option to increase the exposure time to 2 hours daily for 10 weeks. Several pain questionnaires (EQ-5D-5L survey, Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire, and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire) were used.

Significant reductions in overall average pain intensity, frequency, and duration were found. The ability to fall asleep, remain asleep, and perform chores also improved.

The Gular Study

The 2023 fibromyalgia green light study, “Green Light-Based Analgesia – Novel Nonpharmacological Approach to Fibromyalgia Pain: A Pilot Study“, gave 45 FM patients three different colored eyeglasses (clear, green or blue; 15 patients each) to be worn  at least 4 hours per day for 2 weeks. It did not specify which glasses were used and in fact, they used a variety of different green colored eyeglasses. The study asked whether using the eyeglasses reduced opioid medication use by greater than 10% and used various questionnaires to assess pain.

With 33%, 11%, and 8% of the green, blue, and clear eyeglass groups, respectively, reducing their opioid medication use by more than 10%, the green eyeglasses were the clear winner. While the decline in pain score was greater from the green eyeglass group, the difference was not statistically significant (67%, 50%, and 45% for the green, blue, and clear eyeglasses groups). The authors proposed that while the pain levels may have been similar, the green glass group may have been less bothered by pain.

That explanation may make sense given the last finding. The green eyeglasses group was the only group, however, where a majority of patients had a decline in anxiety scores. The affective or most emotionally unsettling aspect of pain can drive pain scores way up.

When a spectrometer analyzed the wavelengths the glasses allowed, they found that some people responded to much lower wavelengths, between the 490s to 510s, while others responded to the higher wavelengths (up to 570). In her YouTube video below, the leader of the study Dr. Padma Gulur, said they hope to find the best wavelengths and be able to produce the glasses “soon”.

In “Pain Management Gets the Green Light“, Dr. Gulur, who is vice chair of the anesthesiology department and the director of Pain Management and Opioid Surveillance for Duke University, said that after treating pain for decades, she was looking for a non-invasive and safe option. She was encouraged by the fact that the participants in the study didn’t want to return the glasses. The response to her preliminary findings has been huge.

“It’s been overwhelming, quite honestly. There’s been an outpouring internationally of those asking for more information. Obviously, there is a huge patient population that is very excited at the opportunity to have something they can do for themselves to help with their pain, that is not invasive and will not leave them with a lot of side effects.”

THE GIST

  • Green light therapy – which involves exposing the eyes to wavelengths of green light – seems like the ultimate in “woo-woo”, but there are biological reasons it might help in FM or ME/CFS.
  • It appears to stimulate the production of melatonin, the feel-good chemical serotonin, and melanopsin, a light-sensitive neurotransmitter that interacts with a part of the brainstem that plays a role in processing pain.
  • Perhaps most significantly, though, it stimulates the endogenous opioid system, causing an increase in both beta-endorphins and enkephalins – both of which appear to be reduced in FM.
  • Beta-endorphins are very effective at reducing pain; in fact, they’re 18 to 33 times better at that than morphine. They also play a major role in stimulating the descending pain inhibition pathways, which appear to be broken in FM, and beta-endorphins appear to be reduced in both FM and ME/CFS.
  • Thus far, the study evidence is pretty sparse, but a migraine study found a dramatic reduction in migraines and suggested that green light therapy could even ease the sensitivity to light in migraine (which, of course, is also found in ME/CFS and FM at times).
  • Two small fibromyalgia trials have been done. One – which used a light strip (see blog for details) – found significant reductions in overall average pain intensity, frequency, and duration, plus the ability to fall asleep, remain asleep, and perform chores also improved.
  • The other found a reduction in medications used and a reduction in anxiety levels (green light therapy is being tested in anxiety).
  • One used a light strip and the other used green light glasses like those available on Amazon. It’s not clear which works best.
  • Dr. Gulur, who is the director of Pain Management and Opioid Surveillance for Duke Health, said that after treating pain for decades, she was looking for a non-invasive and safe option. She was encouraged by the fact that the participants in the study didn’t want to return the glasses.
  • She said the response to her preliminary findings has “been overwhelming, quite honestly. There’s been an outpouring internationally of those asking for more information. Obviously, there is a huge patient population that is very excited at the opportunity to have something they can do for themselves to help with their pain, that is not invasive and will not leave them with a lot of side effects.
  • Next up for Dr. Gulur are larger studies that assess green light exposure on different chronic pain conditions, which determine the most effective wavelengths to use, and functional MRI (fMRI) studies to understand what’s happening in the brain.
  • Gulur doesn’t think green light therapy will ever be the be-all and end-all for chronic pain – no one thing will probably ever do that but, “Even as an adjunct” ,she said, “this could be huge.”
  • It’s not clear which products work best, but mostly inexpensive green light glasses, lamps, and light strips can all be found at Amazon. See the blog for the details of the studies, but in general, the participants used the light strips or the glasses for 1-2 hours a day.
  • The study evidence thus far is sparse and we don’t know which wavelengths – which can differ between glasses – work best, what is the best duration, setting, etc. With several studies underway, we will hopefully learn more soon. In the meantime, green light therapy seems like a safe and mostly inexpensive therapy to try.

RNext up for Dr. Gulur are larger studies that assess green light exposure on different chronic pain conditions, which determine the most effective wavelengths to use; and functional MRI (fMRI) studies to try and understand what’s happening in the brain.

Gulur doesn’t think green light therapy will ever be the be-all and end-all for chronic pain – no one thing will probably ever do that, but “Even as an adjunct”, she said, “this could be huge.”

Different Approaches

Radically different approaches (commercially available light strips vs glasses) are being used in different studies.

The 2021 fibromyalgia and migraine studies used green LED strips from ledsupply.com (VT, USA) (#LS-AC60-6-GR, 525 nanometer wavelength (i.e., green), 8 watts, 120 Volts, 120-degree beam angle). A luxmeter (Tondaj LX1010B, Amazon.com) was used to determine the illuminance of the LED strips.

Two of every three light bulbs were covered to achieve a light intensity of between 4 and 100 lux, measured at approximately 2 and 1 meters from a lux meter, respectively.

They took the LED strip home and placed it between 1 and 2 meters from their eyes in a dark room for a minimum of 1 hour/day, with the option to increase the exposure time to 2 hours/day for 10 weeks. They were to keep the LED strips in their fields of vision, not fall asleep during that time, and asked to do things like reading and listening to music. They were also asked not to stare at the diodes.

The other fibromyalgia study used green glasses but did not specify which type of glasses.

Green Lighting Green-Light Therapy?

The scientific study of green light’s effectiveness in reducing pain and anxiety is promising but still in its very early stages. With a few small studies done, we are still a long way from saying the green light therapy is definitively helpful for FM. How effective and safe it is, which bands of green light work best, which methods do, and the optimal time exposures to green light all wait to be determined.

That said, green light therapy appears to be safe and is relatively inexpensive, and may be able to relieve pain and anxiety and perhaps even the light hypersensitivity that some suffer from.

Right now, you can find green light lamps for migraines (@$70-90), green light bulbs (in the teens), green light glasses on Amazon (from $12 to $189), and many green light strips ($7 to $20). (I could not find the green light strips used in the FM and migraine studies on the LED site. Maybe someone else can.)

While it’s not clear what works best, these do not appear to be specialized items – at least not yet. It appears that if it glows green or adds green wavelengths, it might work. Gular’s study used a variety of glasses to produce pretty good results. With around ten green-light clinical trials underway, or about to get underway, in everything from fibromyalgia to hypermobility to arthritis, It may not take too long before we get more specific data.

In the meantime, green light therapy seems like a safe and mostly inexpensive therapy to try.

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