Aesta Far Infrared Therapy For Arthritis

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What is arthritis? Arthritis refers to more than 100 different muscle/skeletal conditions. The most common diseases of those are osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout and increasingly, FybroMyalgia.

Most of the symptoms of arthritis are characterized by joint inflammation, pain, and stiffness. For most people arthritis pain and inflammation cannot be avoided as the body ages. In fact, most people over the age of 50 show some signs of arthritis. Joints naturally degenerate over time. Fortunately, arthritis can be managed through a combination of therapy, medication, exercise, rest, nutrition and in some cases surgery.

Aesta Far Infrared therapy has proven to be one of those therapies that can effectively help you manage the pain of arthritis. Far Infrared Ray (FIR) can penetrate up to [3.5] inches beneath the skin and directly apply to the area that cause the pain. Among Far Infrared (FIR) healing benefits are its ability to:

Improve blood circulations;
Enhance the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the body's soft tissue areas;
Remove accumulated toxins by improving lymph circulation;
Relax muscles and spasm.

In the end, those effects all work towards relieving arthritis and the pain it causes. Pain robs us of our quality of life. Prescription drugs are addictive, with dangerous side-effects. Aesta's Infrared radiant heat products produce deep, soothing and penetrating heat for the relief of arthritis, rheumatism, sore backs, muscle aches and spasms as well as many other painful maladies. This deep and gentle radiant heat also relieves soreness, swelling and lactic acid from exercise.

Infrared Benefits to Rheumatoid Arthritis

A case study was reported in Sweden of a 70 year old man with Rheumatoid Arthritis secondary to acute rheumatic fever. He had reached his toxic limit on Gold injections and his Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate was still at 125. Within 5 months of undergoing an infrared treatment, his ESR was down to only 11. In the case of rheumatic arthritis of a 14-year old Swedish girl who couldn't walk comfortably downstairs due to knee pain since she had been eight years old, her rheumatologist told her mother that her child would be in a wheelchair within 2 years if she refused gold corticosteroid therapy. However, after several infrared treatments, she began to become more agile and subsequently took up folk dancing, without the aid of the conventional approach in her recovery.

A clinical trial in Japan reported the successful solution in seven out of ten cases of Rheumatoid Arthritis treated with whole-body infrared therapy.

These case studies and clinical trials indicate that further study is warranted on the usage of whole-body infrared therapy, such as using home saunas, in the care of patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The following is a summary from Therapeutic Heat and Cold, 4th edition, ED. Justus F. Lehmann M.D., Williams and Wilkins, Chapter 9 or concluded from the data therein.

It increases the extensibility of collagen tissues.

Tissues heated to 45°C and then stretched exhibit a non-elastic residual elongation of about 0.5 ~ 0.9% that persists after the stretch is removed. It does not occur in these same tissues when stretched at normal tissue temperatures. Thus 20 stretching sessions can produce around 10 ~ 18% increase in length in tissues heated and stretched. 

This effect would be especially valuable in working with ligaments, joint capsules, tendons, fasciae, and synovium that have become scarred, thickened or contracted.
Such stretching at 45°C caused much less weakening in stretched tissue for a given elongation that a similar elongation produced at normal tissue temperatures.
The cited experiments clearly show that low-impact stretching can produce a significant residual than stretching tissues at normal tissue temperatures.

This safer stretching effect is crucial in properly training competitive athletes so as to minimize their "down" time from injuries.
It decreases joint stiffness directly.

There was a 20% decrease in stiffness at 45°C as compared with 33°C in rheumatoid finger joints, which correlated perfectly to both subjective and objective observation of stiffness.

Any stiffened joint and thickness connective tissues should respond in a similar fashion.
Indoor saunas relieve muscle spasms.

Muscle spasms have long been observed to be reduced through the use of heat, be they secondary to underlying skeletal, joint, or neuro-pathological conditions.
This result is possibly produced by the combined effect of heat on both primary and secondary afferent from spindle cells and from its effects on Golgi tendon organs. The effects produced by each of these mechanisms demonstrated their peak effect within the therapeutic temperature range obtainable with radiant heat.

The healing process is significantly enhanced using an Aesta Sauna Dome or Aesta Ion Mat. Far Infrared Radiant Heat Therapy relieves pain, swelling and inflammation by expanding blood vessels, increasing circulation and improving lymph flow. Better circulation allows more oxygen to reach injured areas of the body thereby speeding up the healing process.