That cheap red light device you bought on Amazon might literally just be a regular light with red film over it. If so, you're missing out on real healing benefits!

In today's episode, Dr. Abby Kramer from Fringe Heals joins me to break down everything you need to know about red light therapy. We're going beyond the surface to dive into the actual science: how red light works at the cellular level to supercharge your mitochondria, why specific wavelengths (660nm red and 850nm near-infrared) are crucial, and why most cheap devices are complete scams.

The truth is, red light therapy harnesses the same healing wavelengths that come from the sun,the ones that are most abundant at sunrise and sunset. But since the average American spends 93% of their time indoors, we need quality devices that actually deliver therapeutic benefits. Dr. Abby explains why intensity matters more than you think (hint: higher isn't always better), how to avoid EMF exposure from poorly made devices, and why flicker can sabotage your results.

We also dive into specific applications that might surprise you: using red light for thyroid health, gut microbiome healing, brain function, and even addressing hormonal acne with therapeutic blue light. Plus, we tackle controversial topics like whether it's safe to look directly at red light (spoiler: the research says yes, with proper precautions) and why the warnings about pregnancy and babies are mostly legal disclaimers rather than science-based concerns.

In today's episode, we're chatting about:

• Why most Amazon red light devices are literally fake (and how to spot quality ones)

• The specific wavelengths and intensity levels that actually provide therapeutic benefits

• How red light therapy works at the mitochondrial level to heal everything from thyroid issues to brain fog

• The controversial truth about looking directly at red light (and why it might improve your vision)

• Why EMF exposure and flicker in cheap devices can sabotage your healing

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Read The Shownotes Here

  📍 Welcome back to the Toxin for each podcast. As always, I'm your host, 📍 Wendy Environmental Toxins attorney, turn Clean Living coach. And Dr. Abby Kramer is back on the podcast. And we're not talking about electrolytes today. We are talking about red lights. Thanks for coming back.

Of course, I'm glad to be back. This is usually what happens. I talk about one thing first, and then it's like, oh my gosh, we gotta talk about your other stuff. So happy to have this convo.

I think this is gonna be so good because my audience and my community listening, I think that red light is so popular in the wellness space right now, but it's. Also one of those things where people are like, wait, what does it do? And how does it do that? Is that really true? And are you sure it's not a gimmick?

And it's also one of those things where you talk about it and you educate about it and people are like, oh my gosh, I, I need that in my life. And then they go on Amazon and they go buy something from Amazon. And that also is problematic. So what I wanna do today is give everyone who's listening a. Red light 1 0 1, all the things you need to know, and then dive into the practicality, how to use it, how to make sure you've got a good one.

And then I really wanna talk about fringe red light products because they are , like, completely different than anything else that is on the market. But let's start at the very beginning. What is red Light?

Yes. So, and I agree with you, it's a topic that like anyone remotely in the wellness space or crunchy community has heard of red light therapy, but that's about it, right? It's like I hear about it, I see it everywhere. I see all the influencers with their giant panels doing yoga in front of it. But what the heck is it?

Right? And red light therapy, it really comes down to the conversation is about light and what is light, right? That's really where it starts. So. Light, if you bottle that down, comes down to something called a photon, which if you guys remember in probably middle school science or high school, you learned about the physics of light.

And light is waves, wavelengths of light, right? So imagine like a squiggly wave, different wavelengths of light. Have higher and lower squiggles. Have higher and lower squiggles. Essentially, the distance between those peaks and valleys determine the color of a light and how we perceive. The color. Okay, so a lot of you have heard of red light therapy like we're talking about.

There's a blue light, which I'm sure we'll talk about a

Hmm. Yeah.

Um, there's near and infrared light. Those are invisible spectrums of light. We cannot see them with our eyes, which is really interesting, but they emit heat. So if you've been in like a far infrared sauna, it's actually a wavelength of light that creates that heat.

And in a lot of red light therapy devices, it's made up of red and near infrared light. But what light is ultimately, it comes from the sun, and so around 50% of the sun's natural wavelengths and light, the sun has many different wavelengths. Are red and near and for red light, and there's a lot of healing potential that comes from those wavelengths of light.

It's been very well documented and studied, and so that's what red light therapy devices are doing. It's harnessing those healing wavelengths of light that ultimately are produced by the sun and creating products so we can benefit from those in our homes.

I love that you said the healing benefits of the sun. 'cause I like huge believer everybody needs to be outside and I think a lot of people don't realize that those, those wavelengths that are chosen in red light therapy that have been studied so significantly and so deeply, and we'll get into it. They, we got, we got that idea and we got that technology and we got that from the sun, right?

Like the healing power of the sun, harnessing it and then putting it into, you know, a device in our home that we're using. But that, that's the original concept behind, you know, why those wavelengths work?

Right? And so it's,

That's so, so sad.

it's so bad. So yes, everyone, please get outside more. You need that. The sun is best. The sun is the best healer. And we, you know, I live in southeastern Wisconsin in the winter. It's dark at four o'clock. I can benefit from some red light therapy and there's months on end where it's like overcast every day.

Right. And so it's just another tool to really get us back to our roots as humans, which is most of us have like a sunlight deficiency.

Oh, absolutely. And is it true that the, the amount of red light versus UV light coming from the sun is higher percentage at sunrise? And sunset, am I? Is that correct?

And so that's why, that's why at sunrise and sunset, the sun looks red, orange, yellowy, right? And if you look at the sun right now, in the middle of the afternoon, it's almost blue, right? It's higher in blue light. Naturally, those wavelengths change throughout the course of the day between sunrise and sunset, which is why if you're looking for healthy sun exposure, the best time to do it for multiple reasons is sunrise.

Sunset. Cues, your circadian rhythm helps your hormones. It's also a lot lower uv, really low risk of burning, but we need that direct sunlight exposure, really on a cellular level.

Yeah, and I wanna touch on really fast. 'cause I had always, you know, I always tell people go outside at sunrise and like. Look out at the sun and let that light like into your eyes. It triggers so many things, but your skin, your whole body is full of receptors, of light receptors that are also receiving those light messages from the sun.

So it's not just your eyes, it's letting the sun's ray actually like hit your skin and you know, come into those, those what I call the sunlight receptors. But we are literally plants with feelings like we need the sun.

Sun and water. If we don't have those, we will to weigh and die, basically. I mean, the two ways we absorb those healing wavelengths of light, two pathways through our eyes and through our skin, right? And so what do most people have on all the time? Glasses or sunglasses? Even? Most glasses, they come automatically with a blue light filter.

Debatable on how well it works, whatever. But still, and then most people are sunglasses on the second, the sun's out. And then S, B, F, everything, SB, F moisturizer, SB, you know, and I'm not hating on SBF, we need to not burn and all of that, but that early morning and sunset don't be full body clothes or like SPF shirts to block everything and your face is covered in SPF or a lot of Women's Products Foundation has SPF in it.

You are then blocking those rays, right? So we want to absorb those through exposed skin.

Um, antibodies as well as we're able to significantly decrease the amount of thyroid hormone they needed to be on. So I have avidly been using red light therapy on my thyroid for years

Love that.

and love it, but a lot of people are like, what? How does it do that? So how does the therapeutic part come in? What does red light actually do like to our bodies?

So it does many things, but honestly, the core foundational piece that it does, no matter where you are using it, is it helps heal the mitochondria of the cell. Okay? If you think back again, sixth grade biology, everyone can probably remember this. It's seared into your brain. That diagram of like a cell cut in half.

And you can see all the parts inside. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. It's what runs every process in our body and creates energy for all of those processes to run. So whether you're talking about your thyroid, being able to heal and repair and recover and create energy and lower inflammation and heal from autoimmune condition, whether you're talking about healing a broken bone, whether you're talking about healing your skin.

Or anti-aging and producing collagen. It's going to help all of those things, especially with like a direct on contact treatment. Like you're talking about, I'm assuming you're saying like red light over your

Right over my thyroid. Yep. Yep.

So you're targeting the mitochondria of the cells in that area, basically supercharging them to work better.

Now, in a perfect world, yes, we're outside. You're getting that from the sun, right? But. We don't live in a perfect world. So it's a great, safe, very effective, very low risk way to support really whatever people are looking to heal. I mean, it, it honestly, the more it goes on, the more research that comes out, the more you read, it really does a lot of times seem too good to be true because for the most part it's like, can red light therapy help this?

It's like probably. I mean, honestly, because you're just helping the cells regenerate and heal.

So let's talk about that specific uses. I do agree with you. I think a lot of people are like, yeah, right. So it basically heals everything. But to your point, it heals the core thing in our body. Heals itself like it is, like the battery that we're, we're recharging the batteries in our bodies that are responsible for healing the things that are broken.

So let's talk about some of those things. I already talked about thyroid. So why would somebody want to use red light on say, like their brain? You have a wrap. Fringe has a wrap. That wrap wraps around your brain. Can we talk about some of the science behind that?

Yeah, red light therapy is amazing for cognitive function and overall brain support. So whether you're looking at like trauma, there's great data on red light therapy for concussion recovery, traumatic brain injury, stroke, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ms, all those neurodegenerative things.

It's also great for just like focus support. Right. So if you have like brain fog or a DHD, like you just have a hard time kind of reigning stuff in. Again, if we're supercharging the mitochondria of your brain cells, everything is going to work better. Red light therapy also really helps increase circulation and blood flow, and so helping more nutrient delivery, oxygen delivery, all of that to the brain obviously then has a downstream effect of like helping everything.

And I have a lot of my patients use. Red light for their brain. If they have like a big concern over preventing that cognitive decline, like, oh, Alzheimer's really runs in my family. If that was my genetic line, I would be doing red light on my head every day. No doubt. Because the data's really compelling for prevention.

It can kind of help slow progress too, if someone is in that space already. But it's awesome as a preventative. So just, if. Part of your wellness intentions is brain health. It is like an absolute no-brainer to add that to your routine.

What about things like pain, like headaches and pain, like sinus pressure and things like that?

Yep. Red light's amazing for pain. That's probably the number one reason our customers use our products. It's like a Swiss Army knife for, you know, I always say like the holistic community. This should be in, everyone's like at home toolkit. Because sprain strain, low back pain, you're sore from coughing.

From a cold, you have a sinus infection. Right? Like my daughter's six years old and if anything happens, she's like, I need red light because she, it's like one of the first things we bust out.

Period. Cramps is like a thing in this house. I always like, we use it so good.

Headache, like you said, I use it on our dogs all the time. It's amazing for animals, which we can talk about more if you want, but it's just such a good at home. You know, I find so many of us like wellness minded moms, especially that most of your followers are

Oh yeah, a hundred percent,

, We have our remedies and our supplements and like all of our other things, and this is like a physical, tangible thing that's very easy too, to apply with your kids.

Sometimes your kids are going on a strike and they're just not gonna take your, like echinacea, you know, brew you just made, right? But they certainly can put red light over their chest to support their immune system, or on their back or on their, like scrape, they just got from falling off their bike. So it's such a.

Catchall.

Can we touch on, I've seen some studies on gut bacteria and the microbiome and using red light like on your belly. Can you talk about that?

This is such an exciting one. It's like relatively new. And this is where again, it's like for real it can actually, are you kidding? Like it also does that, but yeah, there's studies showing evidence of red light therapy direct to your abdomen can actually help heal and like balance the microbiome.

I am

It is wild.

wild. I mean my, what I tell people is if you are going to do red light in one area every day, I would do your abdomen. Hands down, biggest bang for your buck. The gut is everything as we know. It's your immune system, it's your neurotransmitters, it's your digestion. So important for so many reasons, and the reproductive system has is some of the most concentrated mitochondria out of anywhere in the body.

So you're really getting a nice two for one, well, more than two for one, but a good bang for your buck in like 20 minutes. You're supporting so many different, systems in your body, doing it on your abdomen.

Oh, it's so incredible. Okay, so we now know red light's incredible. Obviously all the red light therapy, , studies that come out as they come out. For me, it just confirms how important the sun is, right? And so I love that, but I also really love having my red light device, but I. This is the part where I really wanna talk about what is it important to look for in a red light device, like specifically the frequencies.

Let's start there. If somebody is like, okay, I, I hear you. I see all these studies and there's a lot of them. What do they need to look for in a red light device?

yep. So a handful of things. The first. Thing I would look for is what specific wavelengths of light they are using. , A transparent, good quality company will tell you, and that'll be front and center on their website. These wavelengths. So the two things you wanna look for, high quality, red light therapy devices actually almost always contain red light and near infrared.

That's something that's important to understand. We kind of use the umbrella term of red light, but it's usually red and near infrared together. The red light should be around 660 nanometers, and the near infrared should be around 850 nanometer. Now there's a little variability with that because how these devices work is, it's a range.

Okay? So we say our fringe red light is 660 nanometers, but there's a little bit of variability, so I wouldn't freak out if your says it's six 50 or your says it's eight 60, right? But right around that target, those are the most research proven effective. Wavelengths you want to be hitting. , And then the next thing to look at from like a numbers standpoint is the intensity, or that can be called irradiance.

Okay? This is hugely variable across products. You can look at 10 different products, they're all gonna have different irradiance levels. And at Fringe we took a very different approach to irradiance, a lot of other products out there. You'll look at their marketing as like super high radiance, high powered, right?

It's, we always want everything. Like more is better, stronger, better results, right? And so a lot of products are closer to a hundred. Intensity. Intensity is measured in something called milliwatts per centimeters squared for the nerds out there. Okay. We aimed to make our red light because we believe the sun knows best at a similar intensity to that of what the sun is when it hits your skin.

And the sun's irradiance or intensity is between 20 to 40 milliwatts per centimeter squared. So our units are very safe, very low sun-like intensity, dose versus like if you guys see those giant, you've probably seen these like full body panels. Right, like crazy huge. Most of those are super, super high powered, intense and they're probably only having people do like five minute sessions because it's so intense , but the reality is the data actually shows, they've done comparative studies between these super, super high powered units and lower powered units, and you would think, okay, they're probably equal.

You do super high powered for a five minute session. You do something like a fringe rat for 20 at a much lower power, there's probably similar effect, but it actually showed that a longer duration and lower powered unit was more effective. So more isn't better. I mean, go figure. ? It's like we always wanna like supercharge everything and,

sure. So I actually have, I don't have those huge panels, but I do have like one that is like, I don't know, half the height of my body and I, I purposely. And I have multiple red light devices, but I purposely wanted something that was a hundred because I wanted to sit back away from it.

Like I wanted it in my room, but I wa so by the time it would like hit my skin, it would be roughly

Oh, totally. Way lower. Yeah. And that's what you can do, and that's what we tell people, right? If it feels really intense or it feels super hot, or it feels too bright for your eyes, you just increase the distance because the light scatters or reflects. Immediately the second you get it an inch away, right, you get way less therapeutic potential.

So if you do have a high powered unit, I would just decrease your distance. You know, I tell people you have a couple options. You can decrease your distance, you can decrease. If the settings allow you the intensity, like on our wraps and panels, you can change the intensity to be

I love that. I love that. I love that you can do that

Super nice for sensitive people or children, stuff like that.

, Or you decrease the time, right? Instead of doing a 15 minute session in front of your like supercharged panel, do five ' cause red light therapy should always feel warm. It should not feel hot. So that's kind of your clue as to it's too much.

Can we address a controversial topic?

Yes.

Some. I did a, uh, podcast episode last year and I was telling people that for three minutes every morning when I do my red light therapy, I open my eyes.

Yeah.

And the, the, the world went crazy. Like that is dangerous. How dare I talk about that? And in the podcast episode, I was sharing multiple studies that had recently been published that showed that three minutes in the morning, like they were very specific, which no surprise, surprise, not surprised at all that morning timeframe based on our circadian health, that it would be the morning time where.

They had people open their eyes and it was a lower

yeah, yeah.

I was like, oh my God. It was awful. And it literally just went downhill from there. But I mean, think about it. I. College law school, my job, my, like, I stare at a computer screen all day long and did my whole life. And so I have like, it went pretty far and I needed readers that were pretty big and I've slowly started to walk that back, but people were really pissed at me.

And the red light companies that I did recommend were pissed at me. They were like, people need to wear their goggles. That's not safe. And I'm like, whatever. Can we just tell people the truth? So what do you.

lawyer. It's

What, so what do you think about it?

It's fine. I mean, are you not going outside like without your safety goggles on in the morning? Come on. It's fine. But like, so. Any red light company, like if you buy a panel, they're gonna send you eye protection with it. That's like a legal thi of course. And of course, don't be stupid and stand right in front of your panel for 30 minutes and your eyes are like uncomfortable and hurt and you pushed past that.

You need to build up to it, right? I'm sure for you, when you first started doing it, it probably was kind of uncomfortable and over time

It was super bright and now I don't even think about it. Nope,

And

but I also don't wear sunglasses anymore either when I go outside. 'cause I have really, really light green eyes, and the sun used to really bother me. Does not bother me anymore. I do not wear I do not wear

Yep. You have to adapt to it for sure. There's an adaptation period, so I would tell people if you wanna work on this, start with just having like your red light panel, your device just like on in the morning or evening, those hours so it's on in your environment. Your eyes are still receiving that signal, and gradually over time you can get closer.

You can also start with doing that with your eyes closed. You do absorb some of the light through your eyelids, and that's obviously going to be more comfortable. And over time you can increase that dose. But if it's uncomfortable, if it's painful, of course, stop. There's numerous studies showing red light therapy, like heals eyes and

Yes.

like macular degeneration, all this stuff, right?

So

I know.

blah, blah. Yeah.

but that was a good point that you made. The other reason why I really like having my panel is that it's in my kitchen and that's what I turn on in the morning. And that way I don't have to turn on these bright blue overhead lights. It's my light in the morning.

That's how I get ready.

Yep. Especially if you're the type, like I'm an early morning person too. I'm usually up before it's light out. Right. And so then you're giving your body like healing natural wavelengths of light, not artificial.

Yep. Okay. I wanna talk about quality and Amazon for a second because people need to hear this. I get told all the time because the average red light, I have a very, very small amount of companies that I like trust, that I feel like have done a really good job from a quality perspective. That's over on my guide, and you're gonna find fringe right on there.

Um, people, people think. Oh, I can go get a hundred dollars red light on Amazon and that that's good enough. I don't need to spend $300 or whatever it is on something that's like high quality. And people don't realize, literally there's companies on Amazon. I mean, everything. There's so much counterfeit on Amazon, it's not even funny.

But even the ones that look legit, even the ones that are like, this is our wavelength. And the ones that say all the right things, there are literally companies selling blue light. Like regular lights and putting like red film on it. Can we talk about that?

Yeah, it's real bad.

It's so bad.

That's where it's like you just need to go through a company that is really transparent. About everything that'll give you information that'll do like a third party, we didn't even talk about this, but EMFs are a big issue with red light therapy devices. So anything that plugs into a wall is gonna have EMF.

And so if you have like our panel plugs into a wall, but we do a lot of extra work to ground the EMF away from the unit, keep it closer to the wall. So at like a treatment distance, your exposure is zero. Most people don't do that 'cause they like frankly don't care. . And so you don't know if you're like, blasting yourself with EMF every time you're doing it.

Then it's like, how beneficial is this? Flicker is another really important one, that cheap units, you don't want your red light therapy to have a high flicker and flicker. Usually it cannot be detected by the human eye, but your physiology detects it. And think about when a light's

you done this with your phone? Have you take a video? You can record it and see, I have people do that with their overhead lights and they're, and it literally is just like flicking

horrible. Like imagine if you could see that, right? And so you don't want your red light to have, it's just irritating to your system. And obviously you get what you pay for, right? So it costs more money to make these high quality units that don't have V of meth exposure, that don't have flicker that hit the right wavelengths.

And that last right. Maybe you spend a hundred dollars on a unit, maybe it checks all those boxes. I don't know. But in six months, does it crap out? Does it have a good warranty? Does it have a good customer service where you can actually talk to a person and they can replace your unit when you have a problem down the line?

So it's just important to know what you're buying because especially when you're putting something on your body, and we didn't even talk about this, but talk about toxins. What's it made out of?

Yeah.

What is going on your skin every time you're doing that with a unit that like heats up. Oof. Right. We didn't even go there, but it's just when you're investing in like a healing product that is not somewhere where I would choose to cut corners.

Right. Just like our previous conversation on supplements, you might be able to find cheaper supplements, but at what cost?

And I've had people come to me and you know this is true with anything, the whole, you get what you pay for. Like whether it's supplements, whether it's really good quality, essential oils, whether it's really good quality, you know, red light, all of those things are. So healing in so many ways, but if you buy crappy ones, they're not gonna do anything for you.

And so, so many people come to me and say, I bought a red light and it didn't do anything. And I was like, well, which one did you buy? Because it does a lot for me. Like, I don't know. And um, and then they would upgrade and get something quality and they'll come back to me and say, oh yeah, I notice a huge difference.

So it's like, it's just a waste of money anyway if you're actually buying it for something therapeutic.

a hundred percent. And I would also argue a lot of people don't have the perspective on red light therapy like. Previous to five years ago, there were no at-home red light therapy devices. If you wanted to benefit from red light therapy, you were going to a clinic three to four times a week, paying probably 20 to $50, maybe even more for specific things like a laser treatment.

And so, you know. If you put that into perspective, now you're paying, I don't know, between two to $500 for an at home unit that like pays for itself for a month of sessions that you would have to pay like a clinic for. So it just, it costs money to make high quality products and you definitely get your use out of it, for sure.

Yeah. Okay. I wanna talk about specific uses in your. Products in particular because there are some things about your products that don't exist other places at all, which is something I really love the, I wanna say creativity, but I feel like you, what you guys just did was you really listened to the people who were gonna be the people using it, and you made a product.

Specifically for them, instead of like generalized red light and there's nothing wrong. Like I have, you know, a panel and my little box, like there's nothing wrong with that. I use those things every single day. But your products are special. So let's like walk through, I wanted to first talk about your face mask because I, in my group, my Toxin Brain three course that I have.

My students. I have a lot of people who have as mature women, hormonal acne that is like they, they're trying everything, right? So we have a lot of conversations about skincare and sun and all that

yep,

Your mask has a blue light setting on it. Can we talk about that?

Yes, and everyone's like, blue light. I thought that was bad. How dare you put that in a product. There is a difference between your horrible blue LED overhead lights and therapeutic blue light, right? Same thing. Same thing. It's about the specific wavelength you are using and the purpose in which you're using it for.

So blue light is antimicrobial, it's antibacterial anti-yeast. It kills infections. A lot of times acne is bacterial. Or yeast in nature. And so we decided to put that in our face mask. It's also in our pelvic wand, which I'm sure we'll

Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second.

But it helps kill those infections, so anyone with acne.

The blue light setting specifically is really great for blemishes and breakouts, but I still have those people use both settings 'cause there's studies also on red and ear infrared light for blemishes. So I would do the red light and near infrared setting and the blue one. It's amazing, amazing for even if your face is clear, but you have acne scarring maybe from when you were a teenager.

It's amazing for scars. And the clutch one, no one uses the face mask for those sinus infections. Because you're getting it right there,

up.

and you can do blue light, which is antibacterial, so the face mask is just awesome.

Oh yeah, it's incredible. I don't own it yet, but I have multiple students, , that do, and now that I've seen their, like, transformation, so I'm like, okay, that's next on my Christmas list of myself, so I love it. Okay. I wanna talk about the head wrap you have, and by the way, wraps like just in general, the fact that you guys have.

are the bomb.

These wraps where you can literally, they mold to your body. And so your head wrap, what is the difference between utilizing your head wrap, which is specific for, you know, brain, that area, your head versus like, just sitting in front of like a full panel where your head is getting like

Some exposure. Yeah, totally. I mean, listen. Red light therapy is the most effective directly on contact. Like we talked about. Anytime you're any distance from a panel, the light scatters, you lose some absorption, right? Hence, for us, the wraps red light is also only works if you actually use it and use it regularly, and so I find with myself, with my family, with my patients, with my community, just the wraps are so much more user friendly.

You wrap it on it's wireless. You can be doing the laundry

literally walk around and do

can walk around people. It's so awesome. You're not tied to a cord. It's just so easy. But the head wrap has the red and near infrared light. So people ask, can I just slap a regular wrap on my head? Yeah, of course you can.

But it also has an additional wavelength of near infrared that is designed to penetrate the skull deeper because obviously. Your skull's kind of in the way. So it's more targeted specifically for brain. Now I have some people that have bought the head wrap and because you fold it up yourself, it's like a Velcro situation.

You can unfold it and use it on your back or use it on your knee or use it on your abdomen. It's not gonna hurt anything. So that one is a really nice one, um, for brain health. But you can use it other places too.

Can you, the settings that are on it, can you turn that third part off or is that automatically part of the settings?

it's automatic,

It's automatic.

it's fine. It's just gonna go a little deeper, which isn't the worst thing.

No, I mean, I, I would think that you would want that,

Yeah. Especially if you had like a deep injury, like that would be a good one to bust out.

Okay. Can we talk about the vaginal wand

Yes, we can. The magic wand,

or the ma, is that what you call it? Magical wand.

I've really pushed with our marketing team to run with that, but they haven't listened to me yet.

oh my God, you can have so much fun with that. So many ideas just popped into my head.

magic wand emoji. It's all happening,

Yeah, I, I want you to talk about this like in depth because so many women, so many women, so many women have so many, like pelvic, pelvic floor pain during sex. Like we, there's so much suffering that is silent, happening with women in this country, and this device is incredible.

Okay, go.

So yes, we formulated it alongside, , women, pelvic floor specialists. So they helped the whole way along with prototypes and testing it and all of that because there just wasn't a great, thoughtfully designed product on the market before. , If anyone listening has ever been to physical floor.

Therapy, maybe postpartum or anything like that. You know that a lot of it involves internal, like intravaginal work. That's just how you access those pelvic floor, those tiny little muscles in there. The best way. And what happens, this is often postpartum, but hey, there's a lot of women that have pelvic floor issues that have never been pregnant or never had a baby.

So not to say that doesn't exist, but I'd say it's the most common time you hear about it. Yep. I had three kids. Now I can't jump on the trampoline without peeing my pants. Okay. That's not normal. It is very common and we're told it's just you have kids. That's the price you pay, but it is not normal. What that is is pelvic floor dysfunction, and it usually means certain muscles are really, really tight and it affects your bladder control.

Okay? So that's kind of category one is like leakage, bladder control issues. The way you get to those muscles to release them is internally. That's it. Okay. And so the red and ear infrared light is also really healing, promotes collagen, promotes nutrient delivery, promotes blood flow. So it's super, super great for women, especially in perimenopause and menopause, that experience a lot of vaginal dryness and pain.

Okay. And then another category it's incredible for is chronic infections. So if you're listening and you get yeast infections all the time, chronic bacterial vaginosis, um, urinary tract infections, that's an issue with the microbiome of your vagina and your pH red and your infrared light help that. But the superstar for that is therapeutic blue light.

Same that's in the face mask, anti-microbial. Okay. So it really helps get at that root cause of whether it's a bacterial overgrowth or a yeast overgrowth or something like that, and helps like heal that internal environment. Just like how we talked about red light helps your gut microbiome or the microbiome on your skin, on your face, same idea applies.

So usually it's the shock factor people see and they're like, oh. Is fringe Is fringe

stick that where,

What's happening? And it's like, yeah, we are, and no one's talking about it and you need it. So it's amazing. It comes with a giant manual that the physical therapist helped put together. It tells you how to use it.

Of course, it's never a replacement from working one-on-one with a provider. That's like the disclaimer. Everyone is different. Everyone has different imbalances. But again, it's all about even if you're working a provider, what is something you can be doing every day? To help you between sessions to help you heal faster.

Or maybe you did a ton of physical floor therapy postpartum and now three years later you're starting to have some symptoms again. That's something you can like then go back to, and it's really great honestly for people like you and i's age as a preventative, you start working on this stuff now, you're gonna be a lot better off when you hit menopause.

As perimenopausal women over here, everyone's talking

keeping everything together with lights everywhere.

all working.

Yeah. It's

All right. So I know, okay. We've talked about all the amazing reasons why red light is fantastic. I just wanna touch on two things about kind of maybe some safety precautions for people. , Going back to the whole legal right, every time you buy a red light device, it all says like, talk to your provider if you're pregnant, and you know, all of that.

Exactly. You know, and, and it's all, it's a legal thing, which you understand more than anyone of like, because this doesn't have, you know, 1 million pregnant person study proving that it's safe. We're gonna err on the side of caution and say avoid direct contact on that area.

But man, I wish this stuff was out when I was pregnant with my daughter. Like, for back pain. For hip pain, for, you know. So many things. It's so helpful during pregnancy, just not direct contact. On abdomen, we say the same thing, so if you wanna do a treatment on a larger area, you could certainly do a panel.

Just have that safe distance like we talked about between yourself and the unit.

Okay, so I also see to not use on infants and babies, which I completely disagree with. I have seen it take care of cradle cap eczema, so many things on baby diaper rash, like just so, so it makes me absolutely crazy when pediatricians are telling parents

It is 'cause they're not informed. They just like literally have no idea what it is. It's like are you telling them not to leave the house to your kids? One, like come on. So I mean, that's where I really like the rafts though, because on like if you're talking a newborn with cradle cap look, I say do the wrap at 50% intensity.

Like for sure take the intensity down and like do a five minute session. Right. It's, of course, isn't the same as an adult, but it's super, super helpful.

Yeah. And most devices, and they're, like I said, there's a handful of companies I like and I trust, and I love my red light

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I love yours is the only one that you can reduce the intensity on it. So you can have one where, you know, like you said, you can create distance and still allow your kids to like get the benefit.

But yours, you actually can manually put down the Irans,

Correct. So then you can still have that on skin contact and like good absorption, but it's at like half pace. And I always tell people with really little ones too, just every couple minutes touch their skin. Like if the skin feels really hot, then it's too intense, it should just feel nice and warm. So that's an easy way to monitor it too.

I love, so in Virginia it gets really cold, not as cold as Chicago, but I love using my red light just to, because I get warm.

Oh, it's amazing. It feels so

good.

Especially for thyroid people that

Oh yeah. Right. Those of us who run cold.

a red light sleeping bag.

Oh, get on that, Abby, get on that. , The last one thing I wanna mention is people who are really photo sensitive or like if you're on medication and you're photo sensitive or you know, those people that like they go out in the sun and they have an immediate histamine reaction and like rash all over the place.

Those people might need to use caution with it. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're on the meds where you're like legit, supposed to avoid the sun, then don't do red light therapy. Like that's just not for you. For the people who have more of a histamine response to it, I don't think I've ever seen someone that you can't tweak it and figure out a light therapy dose that works for them.

But it's the same thing we've talked about. Lower the intensity or increase the distance or lower the time.

Do you find that when people do that they can grow a tolerance to it and actually see their histamine reactions lesson? Yeah.

Especially if you're also working on whatever the root causes of your histamine problems. Right. If it's mold, if it's infection, whatever. But yeah, just like how people are really sensitive to their eyes. Your body then learns to adapt and you kind of have to do that. It's like if you wanna get stronger muscles, you kind of have to adapt and go through that period of like growth to get used to it.

But um, yeah, 📍 lower the intensity, lower the time, increase the distance. That's,

Oh, awesome. Abby. Thanks for coming back. This was really informative. I feel like people just learned so much

i'm a huge, huge fan of yours. And I know I'm gonna have you back. We're gonna find something else that's super cool to talk about.

There's always something

There's always something. All right, Abby, take care.

Thank you.

A big thank you to Dr. Abby for being on the podcast. And if you wanna get your hands on one of these very cool red light wraps or even maybe the face mask or something else that we talked about today, you can use the link in the show notes and use code, Wendy 10 for 10% off. That is 10% off. Anything that you buy whenever you buy it.

They're very generous. We love Fringe. Thank you so much for your support, and I'll see you guys next week.