Laser hair loss therapy
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The following quote has been bought to our attention several times today, so an official reponce has been posted here;
"Again Laser in the 10-20 mw range are dangerous and can cause over stiumulation of Hair Follicles which will result in overstimulation of cells and cause Hair to FALL out . This is well documented on Many LLLT info sites. The amount of time used is criticle and user must be warned of over exposure. Most hair combs use 3mw like Amazingbrush or 6.5 like Laserwand.com because its effective and over exposure is minimal unless you use daily and for long periods of time. Anything over 3-7mw is waste of money but clever sales gimmick to seperate ther product from other competitors. I have spent years in industry that uses laser extensivly so all of this is not forighn to me "
It is interesting to point out that laser hair clinics in some parts of the world have been using 100, 200, 300, 400+ mw system for many years successfully, and often for 20-60minute sessions. The comment quoted above are unsubstantiated, vague and therefore also misleading. "Laser in the 10-20 mw range are dangerous" at what distance, at what divergence and over what surface area.
Laser safety regulation within the USA essentially LIMIT laser output for home appliances. We are not bound by these regulations as we are not in the USA. We have extensive evidence and are well into medical approvals and expect to obtain various medial approvals shortly. I think it is more a commercial and legal excuse to use 5mW or less expensive laser modules.
"Over stimulation" and "a waste of money" the evidence being? We suspect comments like this obviously originate by a supplier bound by their local laws to only manufacture 5mW devices. We obviously would not have much a of a business model if our products produced results counter to their purpose. If we followed other manufacturers and used older 20-25mW barrel design highly focused laser modules with a very small and high intensity beam, there may potentially be safety problems. But we do not do this and never will do this. The safety issued only relate to accidental exposure to the eye, and nothing to do with "over stimulation" of hair follicles. Many hair loss clinics and salons regularly use 20, 40 and 60 minute session times, is this considered over exposure or over stimulation?
Simply put, 1-5mW barrel design laser module are extremely cheap and simplistic. There is a market for low end and cheap products in any industry, but we have no interest in selling low powered devices. The cheap barrel designed laser modules often use a series of lens to produce a highly focused beam. Meaning the exposure area for each module is actually very low. We use digital laser scattering technology, that EVENLY scatters the laser power over a 1cm area at approximately 1cm distance. To assume that our laser output is similar to a barrel designed laser module is a false assumption. The technical differences in our high quality laser modules is explained on our web page in detail.
For lasers to be considered dangerous, the power DENSITY must be properly considered and calculated. For example, some brands have a single 25mW laser module. Are they considered dangerous? The answer is no as the beam is split into smaller parts. Of course, we can provide the mathematics and physics to substantiate this (in relation to our design at least.) We fail to see any actual justification to support any claim made above (e.g. waste of time, dangerous or cause hair loss, we have evidence and can disprove all these statements.) For example;
A) Dangerous or not is decided by power density(I), I(W/cm²)=P(mW)/1000 /A(cm²)
B) If a laser device uses a lens to focus to a very minimum spot (A(cm²) is very small), then power density will be very high and can be a hazard to the eyes even at a significant distance.
C) A 3-5mW laser module is still dangerous and hazardous to the eye if the focus producs a small beam, usually also producting power over a longer distance as a result. Any laser that is focused produces a power density that is naturally very high. Essentially at a distance of 10cm a barrel design 3-5mW laser module is technically more dangerous than our 20mW (and even our 50mW) design due to the difference in divergence of the beams.
D) Our Aculas is carefully designed and chosen to have a beam divergence of parallel angle of 7 degrees and perpendicular angle of 16 degrees. Therefore a major benefit of treatment with an Aculas laser is that the treatment surface area is signifigantly laser and more powerful over a calculated area. The laser spot (effective area) will be increased with the increase of distance (d). Therefore;
A=Dhs x Dvs
Dhs=2 x d x Tan(Ha/2) Dvs=2 x d x Tan(Va/2)
For example: d=15 cm , power density I will be 0.0004 W/cm²
It is a very minimum amount and hard to measure with ordinary power meter.
In the discussion in other laser forum, all agree laser device with beam divergency will have less hazard. But no one will suggest not to wear goggles for Class 3b laser device.
In practice, Aculas with laser power of 20mWx5 and beam divergency will bring no harm to the eyes or hair follicle and our research, testing and customers agree with this. Als;
1) 660nm is bright red beam, no one can look the beam for seconds without closing eyes.
2) power density is very very low if the distance above 10 cm(0.0015 W/cm²)
Therefore it is not necessary to wear goggles except you will feel more comfortable, but the risk is actually greater with narrow focused (and small exposure areas) with old designed barrel laser modules, such as the 5mW modules in the brands you have mentioned already.
NOTE: We have tested 5mW, 10mW, 20mW, 25mW, 50mW, 80mW, 100mW LENS FOCUSED laser modules with no evidence of hair loss present. We also offer a 250mW edition of Aculas that will be shipping in volumes shortly. We receive good feedback from customers who have had no or little success using systems equipped with 5mW laser modules who are very satisfied with our 100mW product. We have little doubt these type of comments are simply made by competitors who are only able to supply 5mW type systems due to their local REGULATION and RESTRICTIONS. I will also point out that a single quality digitally scattered laser module costs between 25-50 times more than a single barrel 5mW laser module.
It is also interesting to observe that frequently brands using only 5mW laser modules suggest longer and more frequent treatments if customers are not seeing good results, is this considered over exposure also?
Thank you for your interest in this matter.
"Again Laser in the 10-20 mw range are dangerous and can cause over stiumulation of Hair Follicles which will result in overstimulation of cells and cause Hair to FALL out . This is well documented on Many LLLT info sites. The amount of time used is criticle and user must be warned of over exposure. Most hair combs use 3mw like Amazingbrush or 6.5 like Laserwand.com because its effective and over exposure is minimal unless you use daily and for long periods of time. Anything over 3-7mw is waste of money but clever sales gimmick to seperate ther product from other competitors. I have spent years in industry that uses laser extensivly so all of this is not forighn to me "
It is interesting to point out that laser hair clinics in some parts of the world have been using 100, 200, 300, 400+ mw system for many years successfully, and often for 20-60minute sessions. The comment quoted above are unsubstantiated, vague and therefore also misleading. "Laser in the 10-20 mw range are dangerous" at what distance, at what divergence and over what surface area.
Laser safety regulation within the USA essentially LIMIT laser output for home appliances. We are not bound by these regulations as we are not in the USA. We have extensive evidence and are well into medical approvals and expect to obtain various medial approvals shortly. I think it is more a commercial and legal excuse to use 5mW or less expensive laser modules.
"Over stimulation" and "a waste of money" the evidence being? We suspect comments like this obviously originate by a supplier bound by their local laws to only manufacture 5mW devices. We obviously would not have much a of a business model if our products produced results counter to their purpose. If we followed other manufacturers and used older 20-25mW barrel design highly focused laser modules with a very small and high intensity beam, there may potentially be safety problems. But we do not do this and never will do this. The safety issued only relate to accidental exposure to the eye, and nothing to do with "over stimulation" of hair follicles. Many hair loss clinics and salons regularly use 20, 40 and 60 minute session times, is this considered over exposure or over stimulation?
Simply put, 1-5mW barrel design laser module are extremely cheap and simplistic. There is a market for low end and cheap products in any industry, but we have no interest in selling low powered devices. The cheap barrel designed laser modules often use a series of lens to produce a highly focused beam. Meaning the exposure area for each module is actually very low. We use digital laser scattering technology, that EVENLY scatters the laser power over a 1cm area at approximately 1cm distance. To assume that our laser output is similar to a barrel designed laser module is a false assumption. The technical differences in our high quality laser modules is explained on our web page in detail.
For lasers to be considered dangerous, the power DENSITY must be properly considered and calculated. For example, some brands have a single 25mW laser module. Are they considered dangerous? The answer is no as the beam is split into smaller parts. Of course, we can provide the mathematics and physics to substantiate this (in relation to our design at least.) We fail to see any actual justification to support any claim made above (e.g. waste of time, dangerous or cause hair loss, we have evidence and can disprove all these statements.) For example;
A) Dangerous or not is decided by power density(I), I(W/cm²)=P(mW)/1000 /A(cm²)
B) If a laser device uses a lens to focus to a very minimum spot (A(cm²) is very small), then power density will be very high and can be a hazard to the eyes even at a significant distance.
C) A 3-5mW laser module is still dangerous and hazardous to the eye if the focus producs a small beam, usually also producting power over a longer distance as a result. Any laser that is focused produces a power density that is naturally very high. Essentially at a distance of 10cm a barrel design 3-5mW laser module is technically more dangerous than our 20mW (and even our 50mW) design due to the difference in divergence of the beams.
D) Our Aculas is carefully designed and chosen to have a beam divergence of parallel angle of 7 degrees and perpendicular angle of 16 degrees. Therefore a major benefit of treatment with an Aculas laser is that the treatment surface area is signifigantly laser and more powerful over a calculated area. The laser spot (effective area) will be increased with the increase of distance (d). Therefore;
A=Dhs x Dvs
Dhs=2 x d x Tan(Ha/2) Dvs=2 x d x Tan(Va/2)
For example: d=15 cm , power density I will be 0.0004 W/cm²
It is a very minimum amount and hard to measure with ordinary power meter.
In the discussion in other laser forum, all agree laser device with beam divergency will have less hazard. But no one will suggest not to wear goggles for Class 3b laser device.
In practice, Aculas with laser power of 20mWx5 and beam divergency will bring no harm to the eyes or hair follicle and our research, testing and customers agree with this. Als;
1) 660nm is bright red beam, no one can look the beam for seconds without closing eyes.
2) power density is very very low if the distance above 10 cm(0.0015 W/cm²)
Therefore it is not necessary to wear goggles except you will feel more comfortable, but the risk is actually greater with narrow focused (and small exposure areas) with old designed barrel laser modules, such as the 5mW modules in the brands you have mentioned already.
NOTE: We have tested 5mW, 10mW, 20mW, 25mW, 50mW, 80mW, 100mW LENS FOCUSED laser modules with no evidence of hair loss present. We also offer a 250mW edition of Aculas that will be shipping in volumes shortly. We receive good feedback from customers who have had no or little success using systems equipped with 5mW laser modules who are very satisfied with our 100mW product. We have little doubt these type of comments are simply made by competitors who are only able to supply 5mW type systems due to their local REGULATION and RESTRICTIONS. I will also point out that a single quality digitally scattered laser module costs between 25-50 times more than a single barrel 5mW laser module.
It is also interesting to observe that frequently brands using only 5mW laser modules suggest longer and more frequent treatments if customers are not seeing good results, is this considered over exposure also?
Thank you for your interest in this matter.