🛑 Weekly Light Therapy Newsletter: Great New Jaw Pain Study & Latest Articles

So in this week's newsletter, we're covering a very recent TMJ and red light therapy study. You can read the full text for free HERE. What makes the study surprising is that the light therapy was applied to the ear.

The study is interesting because it's very easy to replicate at home, in a way. Here you can see the treatment schedule:

Well, at least, everyone has access to 660 nm, theoretically, is almost every single product on the market emits that.

What's interesting is that the study participants didn't get their jaw treated, but their ears instead. At face value, it's very simple, at 4 J/cm2.

If you're interested in the topic of dosing, read the guide here:

But back to the study. The focus here are "Temporomandibular disorders (TMD)". This is jaw pain, in plain English.

Quite a few people suffer from TMD, actually, but we don't have great statistics on this topic. Some online sources claim it's even as high as 35% of the population, which would be impossible to believe in our opinion.

The study included 21 people in total, for both the intervetion and placebo groups. This is a "pilot study", which is a first test to figure out whether this therapy is working or not, basically. Treatment was only once per week for 4 weeks. Here's what the researchers measured:

Pain
Jaw function
Jaw movement
Anxiety and depression (which are closely tied to pain

Surprisingly, jaw function and movement didn't improve in this study. But, the participants did have less pain, and also lower anxiety and depression.

What's interesting though is that a SUPER low dose of 4 J/cm2 can have such a big effect. You can basically use any of the handheld red light therapy devices, which we've included here, to achieve that goal:

Light Therapy Insiders Shopping Tool

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And, how groundbreaking is this study? Well, Vladimir Heiskanen's chart has over 100 studies on TMJ right now. So obviously this new study is only a small piece of the full puzzle. But, the groundbreaking development here is that treating the ear directly affects the jaw. We've talked a lot about the systemic effects of red light therapy in the past, such as here:

Is the study perfect though? Far from it - it only has 21 partcipants. But yeah, we'd love to see a study with more participants in a larger trial.

Also, you can say quite a lot about the treatment protocol of only 1 time per week - what would the results be with more treatments, or a higher dose, for instance? You'll also want to verfiy this outcome so that you know that the results are real, so the study needs to be reproduced.

Then, Here Are Our Latest Light Therapy Insiders' articles:

Every single article that we've published recently - you can find the videos in the article itself:

Inia Glow Red Light Therapy LED Mask Review: The Near-Perfect Budget Mask With One Big Caveat - This mask apparantly has it all, but it's got one tragic flaw
Best LED Mask in 2025: My Tested Rankings and a Practical Buying Guide - here's the best LED mask for 2025, all you need to know. Compared by Alex Fergus
Red Light Therapy News and Updates: November Roundup, New Devices, Research + Black Friday Deals - The latest red light therapy news
UPDATED TODAY: Red Light Therapy Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale & Deals - yes, the insanity continues with the Black Friday deals. Many of them will continue until December and we'll keep you updated with almost daily new offers! So stay tuned, as many of these offers are ONLY
What I Use: My 5 Best Red Light Devices For 2025 - yes it's OUT, Alex's article on the products he uses in 2025 and will arguably use in 2026. There are some surprises! And lots has changed from the 2017 days, when Alex just used a few simple Joovv panels!
HigherDose Mask Review: Is It Worth $350? - Here's Alex's HigherDose Mask review, which scores really great for comfort and return policy, but has some flaws as well. Read the full details of the review in the article above...