Light therapy with Allay lamp
Light sensitivity is a common feature of migraine headaches and during an attack most people prefer being in the dark. According to a Harvard professor, Dr. Rami Burstein, exposure to pure green light may be better than being in complete darkness.
Dr. Burstein is one of the world’s most productive and creative headache researchers. His research has been published in such leading medical journals as Brain, Nature, Pain, Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience, and many other. This is to say that his research is of high quality and can be trusted.
I’ve known Rami for over 20 years and he never ceases to surprise with a fresh look at old phenomena that have lead him to many breakthrough discoveries. While studying light sensitivity, he decided to look at the effect of different parts of the visible light spectrum on the brain of experimental animals as well as migraine sufferers. According to his research published in Brain, white light as well as other colors of the spectrum worsen pain perception, but green light reduces pain. Blue light produces the strongest pain response and this is why some of my patients find relief from wearing orange-colored lenses that block the blue part of the spectrum.
Another paper by Burstein and his colleagues published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that exposure green light also has a positive effect on mood and autonomic nervous system functions.
Because of these findings Dr. Burstein developed a lamp that produces pure green color. A regular green-tinted bulb will not work because it does not emit a pure green light. Admixture of other colors negates the beneficial effect of the purely green light. He told me that the original prototype of the lamp cost $50,000, but eventually he and his business partners were able to reduce the price to a couple of hundred dollars. Now, you may think that he is out to make some money on his research, but that is not the case. Being a full professor at Harvard means that the university keeps the profits.
The lamp became available only a month ago and you can buy it at AllayLamp.com. Keep in mind that for green light to work, you have to turn off all other lights and computer screens and close the shades. It may take 1-2 hours to make your pain, throbbing, and other symptoms to subside. A patient I recently saw loved the idea of this lamp because whenever she gets a migraine in the summer she finds relief by sitting in her dense green garden.
Thank you for sharing. I’ve had many patients tell me that the Allay lamp is helpful in relieving pain, migraines, and anxiety, but your experience is the most dramatic I’ve seen.
For the past six years I have suffered daily from migraines that stopped me in my tracks; coincidentally, they started at around the same time I began a new job. Whilst this job is quite rewarding, it is extremely stressful, and requires a lot of concentration. Because of this I find it very difficult to “switch-off”, which further increases the stress. I would often find myself needing to excuse myself from work to rest or sleep in a dark room – light impacted heavily on the migraines. With COVID-19 recently forcing many (including myself) to take a break from their normal jobs, I wanted to wait before writing a review on the Allay Lamp to ensure any benefits I was seeing was from the lamp, and not just a result of the reduced work-stresses.
Having spent quite a bit of time at home I first created a control, seeing if my migraines were still present; alas they were, much to my dismay. I also attempted to alleviate the pain using normal methods: pain medication, essential oils and temple massages, a dark room, and sleep. In addition to lost productivity these had very little effect with me waking up with the same migraine I went to sleep with.
I then began to try the Allay Lamp; as soon as I turned off the main white lighting, and turned on the lamp my migraine became barely noticeable. I was extremely skeptical, so I turned the main white lights back on, and the migraine returned with them. I even tried turning off all lights (including the Allay Lamp) but the migraine remained until the Allay Lamp was back on. I repeated this test over a few nights just to be sure it wasn’t a simple coincidence, but the results were the same.
It got me thinking; if this lamp can lessen the effects of a migraine, can it prevent them? I started using the lamp during my working hours and saw a significant reduction in the amount of migraines I would get.
I still don’t quite understand how it works, but at the end of the day I really don’t care – it works, and that’s all I care about. Less frequent and less intense migraines, plus the advantage of not having to stop work due to light-sensitivity means I am more productive (and pain free) than I have been in a very, very long time. Even writing this review I am sitting in the green ambience of the Allay Lamp.
Putting the clear health benefits aside, the lamp itself is quite aesthetically pleasing. Reasonably small (about the size of a cylindrical Bluetooth speaker), it is easy to transport which is very handy for someone like me who travels internationally for work. The unit is turned on and off by a touch-sensitive button, and dimmed using a touch-sensitive slider. Something I didn’t know about when I first got the Allay lamp is that it doubles as a “white-light”; simply turn the light upside down and the device changes between green and white with a gradual fade effect (which is a very nice touch). It comes with a half-shield so you can prevent the light from shining where you don’t want it to like in your eyes.
It charges via a standard Micro-USB cable which is included, but which is so standard now-a-days that it is easily compatible with the many docking stations I have around the house, and can inexpensively be replaced.
Shipping was fast, and customer service second-to-none; the Allay Lamp Team obviously standby their product, and rightfully so. They strive to ensure their customers are happy, and don’t rely on gimmicks to sell the lamp, instead letting the product (and its happy users) speak for itself.
I wholeheartedly recommend anyone who suffers from migraines to give the Allay Lamp a try and see if your experience with it is as good as mine. To be honest, even if you don’t suffer from migraines having a white flood light you can take with you is pretty cool!
This has been an honest review of the product; I am not paid by Allay Lamp (or anyone else for that matter) for this review.
Green light is not likely to work purely through the placebo effect because it also reduces pain in experimental animals. Green light can help pain, throbbing, nausea, but it may take an hour or two of exposure. We don’t know if it will also help brain fog, but it does have beneficial effect on mood.
Thank you for this information. Would love to know when some of your patients have tried this treatment if you see their relief beyond the expected duration of placebo effect. Does this help symptoms other than painful throbbing? Some folks have facial droop and word finding difficulties etc.
Has green light therapy helped them? How about brain fog ? etc?
Thank you again.