People often ask me why I do what I do. I usually respond by sharing my personal experience with photobiomodulation. So here’s my story.
In 2000, I began working in the aesthetic laser industry when I opened my first laser hair removal clinic in Pretoria, South Africa. It was truly the dawn of the “laser era,” and there was very limited information available. The internet at the time was nowhere near as extensive as it is today.
In 2003, I started importing lasers and other beauty equipment. Around 2005, a client requested a “soft laser,” similar to what Placecol offered. (Placecol is a well-known beauty salon group in South Africa that provided very low-energy laser treatments.) This was my first introduction to the world of photobiomodulation.
My first real experience with photobiomodulation
After Comrades, an ultramarathon of 90 km (2022).
Although I had built up a substantial collection of equipment over the years, photobiomodulation became a truly significant part of my life in 2013, when I shattered my left patella (kneecap). I fell on a tiled floor, and the impact broke my patella into three large pieces and countless smaller fragments.
After the fall, I underwent surgery where the larger pieces were reassembled, and the smaller fragments were removed. Immediately after the surgery, I began low-energy laser treatments (photobiomodulation). By the end of the first week, I was already able to stand on my own. By the end of the first month, during my initial medical follow-up, I could walk from the car to the consultation room without any aids.
This was clearly highly unusual. Typically, the wires need to remain in the knee for a year. Due to limited mobility, many people face significant difficulties walking during this time. However, I managed to convince the surgeon to remove the wires after just three months.
Na Om Die Dam, an ultramarathon of 50Km (2022).
My second experience with photobiomodulation
In 2015, while living in Belgium, I had the opportunity to return to university. I enrolled in Biomedical Sciences with a focus on Medicine.
At that time, I was 40 years old and hadn’t studied full-time in many years. In addition to dealing with dyslexia, I had to study in Dutch—a language I had only learned after moving to Belgium in 2010.
I decided to use the devices I had at home to irradiate my head. I did this because there were days when my brain fog was so severe that studying was impossible.
I noticed a significant improvement in my brain fog, and my dyslexia symptoms almost completely disappeared. Since then, I have regularly applied transcranial photobiomodulation on myself.
My third experience with photobiomodulation
By the time this happened, I already strongly believed in photobiomodulation. But if you had told me six months earlier that I would experience this, I wouldn’t have believed it.
In February 2020, I traveled to South Africa and returned to Belgium a week before the first COVID lockdown. It wasn’t until the first week of March 2022 that I returned to South Africa. That meant I hadn’t seen my parents for two years. In May 2022, my father turned 82 years old.
When I saw my parents again in 2022, I was shocked by the physical and, most notably, the mental decline they had undergone, particularly my father. He had little awareness of his surroundings and could no longer hold a conversation.
In the first weekend of March 2022, I took my parents to visit my father’s sister, who lives on a farm outside Brits. My parents had been farmers all their lives, and Brits was part of the larger area where they had lived.
My father did not recognize the roads or the surroundings. He repeatedly asked where we were, where we were going, and how much farther it was. He still recognized people but was unable to hold a conversation. By late afternoon, he became aggressive and insisted on going home—to the farm—not realizing that he now lived in a care facility.
I began applying transcranial photobiomodulation therapy on him, giving him a half-hour session once a week. Ideally, he would have at least two sessions per week, but the circumstances currently don’t allow for this.
Typically, I spend Sundays with my family and treat my parents in the morning. Besides the transcranial treatments, I also address their other aches and ailments. In the afternoons, we usually drive to my brother’s house or visit Hartbeespoort Dam.
After two transcranial treatments, my father no longer became aggressive in the afternoons when it was time to “go home.” He realized we were returning to the care facility and not to the farm where he used to live.
After four treatments, I took my parents to Hartbeespoort Dam for ice cream, and my father recognized the area. He was even able to point out which side of the dam we were on. On the way back, I was unsure which road to take because I hadn’t been in the area for a long time. Surprisingly, my father was able to guide me.
After eight treatments, he could hold a conversation again. He started learning the names of the staff and other people in the care facility and was able to remember them.
Mijn vader en ik tijdens zijn zondagochtendbehandeling (juli 2022)
What I have learned
With my father, I have come to realize that treatments like these are not only necessary for the person being treated. They truly make an enormous difference for the people around that person. They extend the ‘productive’ time someone can have with their loved ones.
I am fully aware that a day may come when the treatments I apply to my father might no longer have the same effect as they do today. But for now, I am able to have a meaningful relationship with my parents that would otherwise not be possible.
I don’t have to visit a care facility and spend an hour with a stranger who is half in a vegetative state, unsure if he even recognizes me. Instead, I can spend a day with my father and have a conversation with him.
Because of the impact photobiomodulation has had on my life, I decided to formalize it in some way, and that’s how Light Care was born.
Raymond Schoeman