[nwienert]

I've looked into red light at least a handful of nights, I never can come away with a conclusion. It seems like it helps, but it also seems super likely it doesn't do much. I've added the super high intensity arrays to my cart even, before reading into various studies and anecdotes and just not being convinced.

What's the most convincing argument for it?

[kenjackson]

I've used it for a while now on my knees and ankles. Seems like it works. But honestly its hard for me to tell if anything works. I even question Tylenol. All of it seems like it may work some, but its not something I feel has a very acute impact at all.

Without a controlled study, as an individual, how can I tell if my sprain got better in 6 days but would've taken 9 days otherwise???

[tristramb]

You need to sprain both knees or ankles at the same time and then use one as the control.

[differentView]

Both most people favor one side of their body, so the wear and tear would already be uneven.

[jjk166]

Sprain both knees and ankles and red light treat opposite ones (ie randomly select right ankle + left knee or the opposite pair).

[Ruthalas]

You may also have trouble applying the Aspirin to only one location.

[aghilmort]

most useful comment in thread like that H.pylori ulcer discovery

[14]

Tylenol is a pain reliever so may help with pain. Something like ibuprofen may be a better option, speak to your doctor, as it not only helps with pain but acts as an anti-inflammatory. The important thing to note is that it's effects do not happen instantly but something like several days later so if you have a knee issue, taking it regularly as directed by doctor or manufacturers instructions and not just when your knee hurts can really speed up recovery.

As for your question well you basically just have to trust the science. At some point a rat in a lab probably was intentionally injured next to another rat in the same position and one would get the treatment and the other not. They would then see who healed faster. Things like Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen have been around a long time and studied extensively so they have a good understanding of it's efficacy.

Lastly placebo effect seems to be a real effect so if you do something and you think it might help it might help.

[lazide]

Ibuprofen has some well known (and negative) side effects, including ulcers, increased risk of stroke and heart attack, and even significantly increased malformed sperm production [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00456...]

Vitamin I is not, well, actually a vitamin.

[literalAardvark]

It also drastically lowers the integrity of rebuilt tendon/ligament, say after a sprain.

Seems all that inflammation might actually be doing something.

[LoganDark]

poor rat :(

[andriesm]

No they're lucky, all the best medical discoveries are for them.

[monero-xmr]

Sleep on a firm mattress. Stretch daily. Lift weights 3x a week, for 2x upper body focus and 1x leg day. Cardio 3x a week on days you don’t lift. High protein and low fat every day. Low sugar and carbs.

Pain comes as you age. It isn’t unique to modern man, other than we typically live longer than ancient man.

If you do this plan you can still cheat. Drink, party, eat whatever. You invest effort so you can enjoy life when the moment arises.

[raffraffraff]

Actually the "drink plenty" thing, if you're referring to alcohol, isn't something I can do. I quit (or cut down to insignificant levels) after observing is effect on me via my Garmin stats. Everything goes bad: HRV drops, resting heart rate goes up and sleep scores is terrible. One beer or one glass of white wine with a meal around 6pm is ok. But a night out with the guys makes me look like a very sick 80 year old. Heart rate barely drops below 80 while I'm asleep. Normally it's 48-54 BPM through the night. And if I go for a light run the day after having two or three beers, my heart rate is at least 20 BPM higher. So I made a rule: no exertion after alcohol, no alcohol when I'm already compromised (eg: unwell, when those stats are already bad)

[beagle3]

Which Garmin model do you use? Do you know if the measurements provided by an Apple Watch are as informative?

Trying to decide which one to get.

[raffraffraff]

Fēnix 7 Pro Solar Sapphire. I don't know how it compares to Apple, but I love it. Very long battery life (well over a week) and it has sufficient sensors for me. I get blood oxygen, heart monitor (pulse, HRV), altitude, extremely good GPS, message notification mirroring from my phone with canned responses, touchscreen and buttons. The "proper" LED light is more useful than I thought it would be. Garmin Pay only works with Revolut in my country, but at least it's usable - so do your homework here. It can track lots of sports I don't do, I only just it for cycling, running and swimming.

Aside from raw sensor metrics, as someone else said, their Body Battery is pretty decent. The biggest thing for me was seeing a long tail chart for things like sleep score, HRV, average resting heart rate etc and noticing sharp differences on days that I was either sick or drinking alcohol. The effects of a couple of beers on me was similar to COVID (except that they only lasted about 24 hours). But these are things you'll get with any device with long enough battery life that you'll wear it "all the time"

[wright-goes]

I switched from a Garmin Instinct (several years ago) after having used Garmin GPS devices and watches while in the military to an Apple Watch Ultra now. The quantified scientist channel on youtube had some views that helped me decide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhmzxpw5Gg).

Hardware-wise they're largely similar, with some additional edge use cases (depending on who you are ofc) for fitness and outdoors with Garmin.

On the Garmin side for software, one thing I really appreciated on Garmin was the "body battery", or estimate of your energy, as well as health trends, etc. Apple has caught up with many of the features in the last year, and has a little ways to go. Apps like Athlytic do a good job filling the gap, but Apple really is making that gap quite small. Garmin locks your workout data down to its garden somewhat limiting your exports and has it more readily cloud accessible than I'd prefer; I felt the Apple privacy protections were better after reading the TOCs and looking at how the data is stored on each service.

What ultimately made me decide to go with Apple Watch is the above data consideration, the smooth functionality and integration with my iPhone, and the rapid pace of development Apple has had. Also, the cellular, texting (not saying it's the preferred method), Apple pay, etc. are all great to have on the Apple Watch and I can go for a run with only that.

After I paid more attention to my body metrics, I also changed my habits and started focusing on hydration more, when I drank alcohol and how much, and I was able to make good choices that help me feel much better to tackle the next day.

[cyberpunk]

The accuracy isn’t as important as the trend. Don’t expect hospital grade ecg results but either can certainly tell you if things are better or worse since you’re wearing the same sensor.

I’ve got the AW Ultra and I’m quite fond of it, ability to use it without carrying my phone (even audible audiobooks) is the killer for me.

[eitally]

I have a Garmin Epix Pro. I highly recommend the Epix/Fenix line, and these measurements / metrics are far superior to what you get with an Apple Watch (my wife has an Ultra). The differences become even starker if you are an avid athlete and use your Garmin to track your workouts/performances.

[zanybear]

I get the same values and trend after a glass of wine or rye and ginger. I have an Apple Watch.

[throwway120385]

Actually sleeping on a softer mattress leads to more restful sleep for me. I used to sleep on a firm but my partner tries to get the softest mattress she can and I've found that it works a lot better for me than my old firm mattress did. The moveable bases, when adjusted correctly, also allow me to completely relax when I'm asleep and I rest a lot better under those conditions. I notice the difference now whenever I'm traveling because the hotel beds are usually rock hard. Mattress salespeople actually do know what they're talking about some of the time.

[codethief]

I don't know. Humans have slept on the ground for hundreds of thousands of years and now soft mattresses are supposed to be better? Call me unconvinced.

(FWIW, to counter your personal experience with some of my own anecdotal evidence, I always sleep much better on firm mattresses.)

[jjk166]

Humans suffered colds without antibiotics for hundreds of thousands of years. Just because we can endure certain circumstances does not make them optimal. Our ancestors certainly didn't avoid softer sleeping spots because of some benefit the firmness of the ground provided.

[throwway120385]

Humans didn't sleep directly on the ground. Even in hot environments if the ground is even a little damp it will suck all the heat out of your body and chill you to death. What humans have always done is built an insulating mattress out of whatever material is at-hand and then slept on that. You can sleep on straw, dry grass, dry leaves, sticks, burlap or whatever you can find. But you never just sleep straight on the ground.

[Etheryte]

Ah yes, nothing like giving unsolicited advice without even knowing what medical condition the other person has. You mean well, but it's a crude oversimplification to think every problem is just a matter of just work out the same way I do. For some reason, this phenomenon seems to be common in people who found sports a bit later in life, I'm guessing it's had a big positive impact and they want everyone to experience the same. Coaches and athletes tend to be much less quick to give shotgun advice, as they understand there's considerable depth to the problem.

[PcChip]

Suggesting that people work out a few times a week and eat well is not the bad thing you are making it out to be

[maeil]

You're framing a very opinionated (and hotly contested) take "high protein, low fat, low carb" presented as universal truth as just "suggesting to eat well".

[Etheryte]

Suggesting lifting weights three times a week when all you know is the person has a problem with their joints is not only unhelpful, it can be downright detrimental to their health. It's like recommending someone morbidly obese go for a run. It might be fine, but it might also destroy their joints for the rest of their life, and you can't know which it is without knowing more about their situation and condition.

[cthalupa]

A wide variety of joint issues are improved by performing a slow and steady progressive overload with lifting weights. Not all of them, of course, and yes there are some issues that preclude lifting, but this seems rather pedantic. There are a trillion things that most humans can do with no detrimental impact that a small subset can't. Trying to couch every suggestion based on edge cases is silly.

The overwhelming majority of people would benefit from doing resistance training 3x a week, cardio 3x a week, and shifting their diet towards more protein and less carbs and fat. People who fall outside of the large majority due to specific medical conditions need to understand their medical conditions and how they impact their daily life, because expecting everyone else to always take into account these issues is unreasonable and unproductive.

[noah_buddy]

> It's like recommending someone morbidly obese go for a run

To be frank, this is a dumb point. The morbidly obese person probably can’t even run for 30 seconds. It won’t destroy their joints for the rest of their life. Suggesting activity over inactivity is good advice for basically every human alive.

[anon84873628]

You might want to look into BPC-157

[andreareina]

BPC 157 has little to no reliable data to say it works.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6WLUUia6qZjVredWBuOlr6

[cjbgkagh]

A fair amount of anecdotal data though, it has helped me and others that I know. While the effect is pretty mild it is positive. Having a lifelong chronic condition I’m very sensitive to changes and have no discernible placebo effect. I’ve tried so many things that my prior belief when trying something new is that it wont work, so it’s a nice unexpected surprise when it does.

[BobaFloutist]

Ghosts have a fair amount of anecdotal data. Homeopathy has a fair amount of anecdotal data.

[cjbgkagh]

I am aware of survivorship bias but for that to apply BPC157 would have to be killing people, this peptide is widely used so if it was killing people we would know due to investigations into their deaths.

People usually hear about this stuff peer to peer and they report back to their peers if it helped or not, so there is a before and after, and for those people there isn’t a selection criteria biased on success. If people don’t report back then others become very interested in why.

[bethekind]

Most of the stuff online is overpriced and beyond the mitochondrial enzyme absorption spectrum, I can't find any reasonable mechanism for action.

I think your hesitance is valid

[theoreticalmal]

You seem like you’re hoping someone will convince you to try it. Why don’t you get a cheap one and give it a shot and see if you feel any different?

[Fethbita]

I have been wanting one of these and on multiple occasions tried to find some good quality lights. I have not been able to find one that I feel is trustworthy. Do you have any EU based recommendations?

[ankitml]

get a broad spectrum red light bulb, that is most well understood and is least risky. Cons is the targetted spectrum would be only a small portion of it but good thing is it is a 4$ cheap test. It worked for me for smaller issues, like minor burns, cuts etc.

[nwienert]

I typically don’t buy things unless I feel they have some utility, and it seems the cheap ones likely don’t do enough to notice.

[bethekind]

Build your own. But direct from Alibaba or mouser or digikey.

The main science behind it is to hit the absorption peaks of a mitochondrial enzyme. You can make em bright, but be limited on how long you can use it, or dim and be forced to use it constantly for the same effect.

Pulse width modulation is very important in this for penetration. High intensity allows for deeper penetration, but heats up cells causing stress. The ideal scenario is a really strong light, run at a really low duty cycle, allowing for both intensity AND low average wattage, this lessening thermal issues

There might be other mechanisms of actions, as there are so many papers that say "light good", but until they can give a mechanism of action, I'm sticking with what I know

[its-summertime]

Light is light.

[ben_w]

Some wavelengths don't penetrate so deep, and not all bulbs are the same brightness.

I've seen obvious lies on some product descriptions on internet listings, therefore I wouldn't trust a specification claim like "x nm" or "y lumen", and unless I had tools to measure them I would not rely on them meeting those specifications.

[PeterStuer]

Lumen does not measure much red light.

[ben_w]

Lumens being perceputual brightness means any package listing it for IR is definitely lying; but that only makes it a first-pass filter, "no false positives" does not mean "no false negatives".

e.g. even when it's about visible light, well, do you trust this claim of 500,000 lumen?: https://www.amazon.de/Shadowhawk-Rechargeable-Extremely-Wate...

[its-summertime]

Yeah but like, don't buy from temu or something, buy from digikey etc and just wire it yourself, its cheap enough to be able to fail 20 times without costing more than a burger.

[unclad5968]

Just go outside, there is lots of IR out there. If it feels good then get whatever gadget you want to emulate it inside.