The Laser Hard Hat

[ShaveTail]

Hey guys, I just wanted to share my first stab at an LLLT helmet: The Laser Hard Hat

The project began when I found an old lineman's hard hat at a thrift store for $2 and thought of OMG. Using his website (thanks for all the information mate!) I started amassing the other materials. A modest 60 diodes with the extra power and holes drilled for another fifty should I wish. The helmet is a great choice as it is a force-hardened plastic designed to take impacts--it therefore will never crack during drilling regardless of how close the holes are to each other. The interior suspension also allows for a custom and snug fit.

I added two very ad-hoc features that I really think might be useful. I lined the unused areas with foil to reflect as much light down as possible. If I ever do this again I would pre-spray the inside of the helmet with a reflective paint. The other redneck addition was a liberal amount of duct tape around the bill to create a shield in the space between the suspension and the front of the helmet. I really don't like the idea of infrared light shining down toward my eyes for twenty minutes or so at a stretch. Paranoia is the DIYer's friend people.

I'm still not sold on LLLT as a hairloss solution; I've been around the block a few times with 'cures.' But for under $200 and maybe two weeks worth of work at an hour each I'd say it's worth a go. Been using it since the first week of July. I figure I'll have a pretty good idea if I want to add more lasers by January, or just junk the project.

We're at the right place, though. I for one am going down swinging.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32654494@N08/

[hapyman]

Nice ShaveTail. Looks pretty decent. I like the added features for reflection and eye protection. Eye protection is always a good thing.

Just worried about a few things though.

Are your lasers diffused? It looks like the caps are still on.

Are you planning on just treating that one area depicted by the pattern of your diodes?

I ask this because I have a similar sized cluster as you. Except one main difference. I move this cluster and treat a total of 3 different areas. This equals about 200 diodes instead of just 60. I am just worried that if you treat only this one spot your results might not be as good as you'd expect. I know it took a lot of work to make this but I highly suggest you rework it a little. I am in the same position and couldn't afford 200-300 diodes right off the bat so I made the best of my situation and made a moveable cluster. OMGs first device was like that and he got good results with it and I too am starting to get some results.

There are some key things you want in a helmet if you are going to build one yourself:

- Equidistant diodes at about 1-2cm from the scalp. This is why OMG using hair brush bristles, it works as a measuring stick so to speak.

- Diffused lasers. This will allow you to cover as much area as possible, which seems to yield better results. Not to mention the little glass/plastic lens absorb some of the laser energy making the overall ray more concentrated but weaker when taken as a whole.

- Overall coverage area should also include future, current and possibly healthy sections of scalp. The more scalp area that your treat the better off you will be. This is why people either have a full coverage helmet sometimes with up to 400 diodes or they use a move-able cluster to cover as much area as possible. There are a few that use a single small cluster but there results are not usually as good or quick as the others.

I hope I didn't disappoint you and would love to help you out if you have anymore questions .

Good luck!

[hapyman]

At second glance you have very different diodes than what we typically use. They look like a stronger mW version.

Just curious what type are you using?

[ShaveTail]

The laser's are OMG's recommended brand, the Aixiz 6nm, 5mW except for ten around the edges that I took from an old ten diode unit I'd bought a few years ago. (same classification). I removed the lens caps, popped the lens out and then returned the caps because of the helmet material--a little force is needed to push them through, so I didn't want to damage the diodes, and the plastic material is a good half inch thick and the lasers are more stable a when left a little longer. I couldn't get the caps off of the ten older ones though, so they are not diffused, but there are only ten of them so f*ck it.

The pattern looks smaller than it is because of the oversized helmet (they are large in order to give a little if you get hit by a beam or something). I mapped out the pattern when I was working and that pretty well covers the whole top of my head. I'd like to add diodes to the sides and forehead at some point, but they aren't as necessary. I can see the draw of using three hundred diodes, but frankly that seems like overkill to me. The light footprint is pretty impressive--I'll take a photo later.

The distance isn't much of a problem because of the internal suspension; I can position it from a few inches up all the way to against my head by loosening the band at the back. Pretty nifty.

[OverMachoGrande]

Hey, ShaveTail!

That looks great, and I'm sorry I haven't commented! I didn't want to appear rude! lol... I'm just out of time and I'm getting to the point where people are going to start screaming at me that I'm not answering their emails, but I'll comment more tomorrow!


-O.M.G.

[jdp710]

I'd have to agree with hapyman. You really do want a moveable cluster if you have only 60 diodes to work with. I'm really not sure if you'll notice much in results in the current design.

Last year, it was pretty well determined that you want a "minimum" of 200 diodes either as 200 diodes as a full coverage helmet, or 68 diodes in a cluster moved moved 3 times on your head which is like the equivalent of having 204 diodes.

At any rate, congrats on making a laser helmet! Good job!

[ShaveTail]

Well, this won't be popular, but I suppose it must be gotten out of the way:

Okay, 'pretty well determined' meaning what , exactly? NOTHING in LLLT is 'proved' in any way at all; even the medical research is anecdotal. Distance from scalp, duration, frequency, wavelength, 'required joules,' where the hell are all of the recommendations for LLLT coming from, anyway? I'm not saying it won't work; I'm clearly trying it. But where is all the pseudo-science coming from? I've read every actual article I can find on it and I haven't seen a thing about parameters.

From what I can find the only recommendations come from a slim group of sources: the limited information from the HairMax FDA trials, and crap from guys like the Bauman Medical Group and Sunetics--both of whom clearly have a buck to make and are highly suspect at best. The other batch are forum posters. No offense guys, but come on here...

The information on LLLT and wound healing is promising. The limited reputable studies on potential hair growth are promising as well. But where are there ANY reputable comparison studies about parameters? The only solid conclusions are inferred or coincidental--most studies use 6nm 5mW lasers or something very close. That seems a very good starting point, but are we really saying that "three times a week, a few centimeters from the scalp, etc. etc." is the best because... WE'RE saying it's the best? Rumor feeding rumor, anecdotes becoming gospel, or have I really missed something?

I suspect we are basing these recommendations on message board posters saying things like 'I've been getting GREAT results like this!' with nothing to prove it, and dubious claims from the Hairloss Industry clinics that didn't think they could get people to come in more than a few times a week. Hell, I haven't even seen more than a few pretty fuzzy photos from old Regrowth.com posts from anyone at all--to say nothing of the crap from this "Dr. Maricle." Please correct me with some hard facts here fellas, because this really has bothered me from the start of this project.

Every debate needs a cold dose of skepticism now and then, especially with the number of wannabe Hairloss Gurus out there. One need look no further than the travesty that is HairLossTalk to see what happens when gurus take charge with divination from self righteous marketing. I want to be convinced like everyone else.

[jdp710]

Geez, I guess that's what I get for helping ...

[OverMachoGrande]

Shavetail...

Actually, let me recap the history of all of this a little bit. So much time has passed now that some of that has gotten lost over the thousands of posts that all of us have made! Some of it was luck, but one definite thing happened... we determined the protocols for ourselves, it was later backed up by professionals -as well as repeated reverse engineering of machines- and then it was further backed up by trial and error of many of us in the forums. If you weren't around at the exact time this was going on and you weren't a part of it, it's easy to look at 70 names on a testimonial sheet and just gloss over them! But to us... we were all hair loss veterans, doing all sorts of proactive experiments, and from that we were able to nail down a pretty good set of principles to follow!

What we found is that this isn't some crazy sort of thing, but there are definite scientific principles you can follow to get the best results. If you haven't seen anything on parameters, it's because you haven't looked at the right sources, and yes... there isn't a lot of information specifically on "lasers and hair loss", so don't feel bad. In fact, I remember about two years ago when I was starting to look into this, it was so hard to find ANYTHING on this!

The way it started is this... a lot of us started reading a lot of studies at laser.nu -I think they have 1400 of them (although I want to say that it's now about 3000, but I'm not sure). Obviously, those are on the broad topic of biostimulation, and cover all sorts of treatments.

Well, what we began to notice after a while was that all of the studies had one thing in common... the range in which tissue was starting to gain positive benefits for just about everything was somewhere in the 3-6 joules per square centimeter range, with 6 being better than three. Sure, sometimes you'd see 2 and sometimes you'd see 7, but on average, it was 3-6. You can determine this for yourself if you start reading the studies.

A lot of us, especially me, had torn into laser calculations as well. I've currently lost some of the old links, but there were old threads in which laser physicists had spoken about how to properly calculate the power level, and what was required to achieve biostimulation. Of course, these threads were FIVE OR SIX YEARS OLD! This information was just lost on everyone back then, including me (ok, especially me, because my first thread in a forum was bashing lasers). Anyway, the crux of this is that we kept coming to the 20 minute time frame in order to get about 5 or 6 joules.

So, when the first people made their laser helmets, we decided to shoot for that time in order to get the energy that we felt we needed from all the studies on lasers and the biostimulation of human tissue. We knew NOTHING of laser clinics at that time. However, eventually enough people started getting involved in this that they started sharing their experiences with laser clinics, and sure enough... the time frames matched.

So, here is what started happening... from our experiences, we realized that the people that were getting that energy were getting the best results. People that were doing their devices for longer than 25 or so minutes were getting less results, and people that were doing their devices for 10-15 minutes were getting less results. When these people would then switch to 20 minutes, their results would increase! It started making sense at that point why laser brushed didn't work, too. THEN, after all of this, we started finding information to back up what we already found on our own, and soon we had it nailed pretty well.

Now, after this point, we started talking it further and started realizing "little things" like how important it was to have an even dispersion of energy. Thus was born the "Flexible helmet that rested on brush bristles". That was a combination of great ideas from a lot of hard working experimenters, and once we got a lot of people on the "same page" of using the same sort of device, we were able to realize that we were really nailing it!

So, the influence of the other laser companies was really NIL. It was great corroborating data. For example, we saw plenty of studies that showed that higher than 10mW diodes at the 650-ish nm wavelength can have an adverse effect because it's too strong for the tissue, and there is less of a response at the several mm depth (which happens to be where the follicles are). We went with 5mW diodes not only because the fit the spec but because they were readily available, but it turns out that most of the VERY EXPENSIVE machines that can use any diode they want still use those same diodes. So, that's another example of this process... we did the research, we made our devices like we thought would best achieve what that research spelled out, and then fantastically we found corroborating data that the really good machines were doing exactly what we found all by ourselves!

So, it really was truly an exciting process last year! I suppose we were lucky to nail it as quickly as we did, but we all worked hard enough at both the research and the device designs that I suppose it wasn't an "accident" that we found out the "secret" of making these devices. We found evidence to support everything that we were doing, and that made it so we can take it all further... including things like the frequency of usage and the importance of wet skin.

Like I said, this was all very scientific, and it's a shame that a lot of those threads are gone permanently... victims of a lousy site's faulty database.

But you're right about something... we've figured out what SO FAR has shown to be the best, but that's not NECESSARILY the limit!

For example, I know for a fact that there have NOT BEEN TESTS of any helmet or stand style device using 1mW diodes instead of 5mW diodes. I actually think that there is a good chance that this might be more successful that the 5mW diode helmets. The problem? Yeah, you'd have to use it for an hour and twenty minutes, three times a week.

Also, PULSING DEVICES! Studies have shown that diodes pulsing at 9khz cause the greatest amount of biostimulation. With this one, though, we've been limited technologically. I know someone that is working on a device that he feels will enable a 300-plus diode device to pulse at that rate, and he says he's going to turn the design over to the world if he can get it to work. The DIY price would be about $20, so that means we will all be able to test this out and prove it to ourselves.

One final thing we are starting to uncover is where the limit is with results due to increasing the amount of diodes (as long as they are spaced the same, and therefore cover a larger area vs. overly stimulating one area). The people that are using these helmets with 400 or more diodes are getting WAY FASTER results than we ever did last year. What does that mean? Does that mean that if we increased it to a ridiculous number that covered our whole heads would it still be better? If not, where is the cut off point?

Anyway, there are definite "usage protocols" and "device protocols" that someone can follow and get great results with almost every time. Yeah... the community worked very hard with a lot of trial and error to develop them, and frankly it was probably the largest experiment of LLLT and hair loss to date! I'm extremely proud of what we have done, too, and I'm really glad to have played a big part in it.

There are still some things that can be worked on (especially frequency of use), but I'm going to make videos covering both of those "usage protocols" and "device protocols" in the hopes that I can reach a lot of people that wouldn't ordinarily be drawn to forums to post. I want to help people understand the reasoning behind everything we do, and understand that there is some pretty strong science how great results happen with laser therapy.

Anyway, it's still very exciting times! I know if you weren't a part of it, it's hard to see where we came from, but the fact is... we've pretty much at least mastered the "known". Pushing into the unknown with this stuff is what is next, and that's going to be a fun ride, too! Who knows how far we can take this!

-O.M.G.

[ShaveTail]

jdp710—I didn’t mean that as a personal attack on you; just airing on the topic itself.

OMG—are you saying in a nutshell that tissue exposed to laser light at 6nm, 5mW must absorb the energy for twenty minutes to reach a cumulative exposure of 5 joules? Anything less being less than 5 joules, while anything longer would increase the amount of energy absorbed into a less useful and potentially harmful range?

In other words, in terms of power the diodes themselves and the duration of treatment are the determining factors of success, more so than the number of diodes themselves--increasing the number of diodes doesn’t change the cumulative amount of energy exposure, merely the level of coverage for the treatment itself.

If that is the case would a scientific experiment not be to expose one small section isolated from the rest of the scalp to the effects of LLLT for a period of time? Clearly none of us would volunteer for this, as we are here for a bulk effect, but that would be the crux of a legitimate experiment, correct?

[OverMachoGrande]

Hey, ShaveTail!

That's pretty much what I'm saying. There is a "curve" of results. As soon as you get to about 2-ish joules, the curve starts rising. As soon as you get to 6 ot 7, it's at it's maximum peak, but it starts dropping pretty quickly after that. Now, as soon as you start getting to about 12 JOULES... you start getting LESS RESULTS than you would have gotten if you never used it in the first place! [Bio-inhibition]

I don't mean to confuse what I'm talking about, but I need to mention that this, by the way, is not the case with "wound healing"... with wound healing, we've found that you can literally triple the amount of joules and it works better -I suppose you "use" the energy more for constructive purposes or something vs. just letting normal tissue get overworked. So, "wound healing" is a bit of a different animal that really confused us for a while.

Ok, And with this statement:

In other words, in terms of power the diodes themselves and the duration of treatment are the determining factors of success, more so than the number of diodes themselves--increasing the number of diodes doesn’t change the cumulative amount of energy exposure, merely the level of coverage for the treatment itself.

Yeah, you are right on the money, except there is something else UNFORESEEN going on that we've only just begun to realize in the past four or five months or so. While the energy level stays the same with more diodes -because the diodes are simply spread out more, and delivering that window of energy to a larger area- there is something else going on which makes it so covering a large area gives MUCH BETTER RESULTS vs. a smaller area, even if the smaller area covers all of your balding areas.

I'll rephrase that... if you cover a LARGE AREA, even if you have only a small amount of hair loss, you would get BETTER RESULTS than if you simply covered just the areas that you are losing. We base that one the fact that since there is a helmet that CAN hold a really large number of diodes, people now CAN use a large number of diodes -and they are, and they are getting much quicker, better results than any of us got last year.

The only reason I could think of why this is would be CHEMICAL. The larger irradiated area produces more of the chemicals you need that support healing and fighting hair loss (like S.O.D. and N.O.) and maybe the benefits are REGIONAL. For example... most of us with a decent amount of diodes have noticed a difference in the complexion of our FACES. That's crazy... the diodes don't even cover that area, but yet it happens. It has to be chemical, and those chemicals must be affecting all the regional tissue.

It just seems that there is a "minimum amount of diodes required" to do this, and I don't know what that number is but I'd say it's over 200. That's just based on the size of the helmets that people are using that report this. I just don't hear people saying that with smaller helmets, although I really can't point specifically to any collection of statements about this... it's just something I've noticed with my own experience and with others.

Also, the fact that maybe the health of one follicle might actually depend on a much larger area than we thought (including all the lymphatic systems, etc) could be at play here.

Finally, the main mechanism of laser therapy anyway seems to be that it's providing more ATP for the mitochondria -that theory was proposed 10 years ago, and it still hasn't had anything to disprove that is actually what is going on. All that means is that the cells have more energy to do what they do the best, including healing -and who knows... maybe even something like regulating DHT in the scalp (just guessing... there is nothing to back that part up). So, you literally have a "rejuvenation" of the area.

What we DON'T KNOW is what is going to happen really long term with this. We know that it's not harmful -that's been studied for 40 years- but we don't know whether or not our results are going to level out or continue. We can "assume" that our hair loss will still be stopped being that every time you use it, you are doing more and more healing -but we can't prove it because none of us have gotten there yet. We've "heard" reports that people can still get new benefits up to the five year point and beyond, but I have NO CLUE if that's accurate. Having said that... I have NO CLUE if the BEST BENEFITS don't occur until the five year point, either! Who knows... you rejuvenate your cells for an extended period and you might all of a sudden get to the point that long dormant follicles are springing back to life.

Impossible? Probably... but dammit, I can hope all I want! lol... The point is that I don't know, and the point is that this is working on a different mechanism than any of the other mainstream treatments that do level off.

So, with your final statement:

If that is the case would a scientific experiment not be to expose one small section isolated from the rest of the scalp to the effects of LLLT for a period of time? Clearly none of us would volunteer for this, as we are here for a bulk effect, but that would be the crux of a legitimate experiment, correct?

...that just doesn't seem to work. When you use it on just one little area, you don't get the effects that you do when you use it on a larger area. We know this because lots of people tried things like this, and they ALWAYS seem to get more results when they go for "full coverage".

Those are the best answers I can give with the information that we understand as of August 13th, 2009!

-O.M.G.

[ShaveTail]

Chemical is a possibility, but I would suppose mechanical is as well. We know for example that male pattern loss follows the galea tendon for unclear reasons. The layer of subcutaneous fat around this area in particular diminishes with time, leaving the scalp sitting directly on this tendon itself as muscle does not converge there. If one were to take your supposition of increased performance overall via more lasers, a stimulation of the areas around the tendon would follow. Is there an effect on the occipital, frontalis, etc. muscles that affects the galea tendon?

I do have something more specific to ask you, OMG—I have never been able to get your pictures to load. The links to your photos from Regrowth no longer include embedded images (that load for me, at least). Perhaps a more permanent gallery at Flickr for you and any other success story would be helpful. The link could be stuck in a permanent sticky thread on the LLLT board--a greatest hits gallery if you will.

[OverMachoGrande]

Hey, Shavetail!

Thanks for reminding me to fix those pictures. What happened is this... the regrowth owners made it so all occurances of "overmachogrande.com" get automatically erased, so a picture that is "http://www.overmachogrande.com/picture.jpg" becomes "http://www./picture.jpg", which obviously doesn't work.

Now, ask yourself what would be the reasoning for doing that, hmm?? At the very least, it would be because they are "vindictive S.O.B.'s", but even with that answer, you have to take into account that they knowingly are removing links/studies/graphics/pictures that HELP OTHERS with their own hair loss -in fact, it's the thing that's been shown to help people THE MOST with hair loss in any sort of forum that I've ever seen. So, they are admitting right there that it's not about "your hair loss"... they don't give a damn about your hair loss, or my links would still be in place. No one is THAT STUPID to just think "Oh, well, let's just remove his links because we don't like him". PFT... like me or not, people are getting helped.

It's about the money.

Ok, anyway, I've edited the posts and changed it so the same pictures are hosted on Imageshack.us. Even if they completely decide it's in their best financial/marketing interest to remove all of my posts -so people buy the laser combs that they make money on (it's not about "your hair loss", remember, it's about a site that makes the owners money and I have the emails to prove it)- you can simply just download this PDF of the thread:


OMG's Ten Month Results

I just went to that site, held my nose because of the stink, edited in the new pictures, and made a pdf file of that thread. ...and, oh, it's not my fault that the PDF is so screwed up. That's their broken, horrible site that renders that way.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but having the owners come over to THIS SITE and threaten me by PM's and creepily stalk my posts that I make to help others makes it that way! lol... What AMATEURS! I hope you understand!

-John (O.M.G.)

[OverMachoGrande]

Ok, I wanted to answer your other question in another post because I wanted to keep that separated! lol...

There is DEFINITELY something to the muscular/mechanical aspect of this. You should read my blog "Switchable Zones and Soreness… an Added Benefit to Laser Therapy for Hair Loss (???) ...and I go into it some there.

I've "evolved" some of my thinking since that blog -for instance, I no longer recommend "switchable zones" for a few reasons that I won't get in to here- but I do think soreness plays a role.

The way it stands now is this... the people that DON'T get sore still can get great results, but the people that DO get sore seem to ALWAYS get good results. So, not getting sore doesn't mean you won't still get fantastic results, but the people that do get sore are almost assured that they will. We are madly trying to figure out that reason.

From personal experience, I can tell you that I think your body chemistry makes a difference. I've had some food poisoning instances, etc. where I just DON'T GET SORE. As soon as I'm better, I get sore again. JDP710 and others have noticed that a longterm increase in magnesium can make a big difference in soreness as well.

One reason in the difference in people's levels of soreness may have to do with something as simple as the amount of sebum in the scalp. Not on the surface, but in the follicle shaft itself. That's why I'm going to organize a mass experiment that has one part which includes a PRE-SHOWER topical that removes the sebum. I'm GUESSING that more people will get sore with the addition of this.

Anyway, soreness is a part of this. We still don't know the specifics, but we're working on it!

-John (O.M.G.)

[ShaveTail]

Huh. I never put a lot of thought into the Switchable Zones when I was building mine because, other than the low number of diodes I really wasn't sure at the start that I could pull the wiring together at ALL. So...keep it simple. But I'm thinking I may have to scrap together the cash for another fifty diodes soon--I have the holes drilled and available power for that many. Cost and sheer time stand in the way. Tough times.

What I'm still unclear about re: soreness is exactly where this sensation originates. Does it seem to be skin deep, or down to muscle and tendon level? And of what duration? Only during, or only after, or coming on during the treatment, etc. Something is hovering in the background with subcutaneous fat--has to be. The thin or bare areas of my scalp literally are recessed closer to the skull; I can feel the difference, nothing imaginary. This is some kind of damage.

I paid for my education by stocking groceries (and sadly, three degrees later, I'm still there--God Bless America!). A few years back I ran into a clause in OSHA law requiring employers to disclose the Material Safety Data Sheets of any and all chemicals a worker could potentially be exposed to, so I pulled up the manifest and ran down the MSDS on the refrigerant used in the walk in cooler I spend a chunk of my day in. Just one of those things you do to freak yourself out--and at the time I was finishing my bachelor's and wasn't planning to stay much longer anyway. Long story short, one of the listed possible effects of this freon-like substance was "Defatting of the Skin." This is all wildly off topic, but it's stuck with my none the less. Is that what LLLT does, repairs some of the damage wrought by air conditioners, soaps, hair sprays, alcohol-based minoxidil, %&$! in the air, etc. etc.? Random thought.