green light therapy

[tali122]

about 30 years ago as a child i used to have, ,green light therapy sessions, i used to sit in a darkened room with another little girl both of us in nothing but trunks and goggles looking at a large green lamp for about 15minutes, out of curiosity i asked my current gp about this and he said there was nothing in my medical records about this(!)
now green light therapy appears to be with SAD- but im sure this wasnt recognised 30 years ago-and i know the ONLY concerns for my health was that i was underweight and small(i still am)
so what was all this green light therapy about?, i suffer( starting from my teenage years) what i would describe as sleep delayed syndrome- i wonder if green light therapy has caused this problem
any info would be most appreciated, and i am somewhat alarmed at no mention in my medical records and i fear experimentation and need to find out more as i a,m becoming suspicious

thx
thanks

[Buenchico]

In the years between the two world wars it was common practice for groups of children to have regular sessions, wearing nothing but goggles and trunks, in front of a UV lamp. (The UV lamp might well appear to be green when viewed through the goggles). This 'treatment' was used for a variety of medical conditions, including a low growth rate.

By the period to which you refer (1970's) this type of treatment was largely discreditted but it's quite possible that some practitioners in alternative medicine may have still been using this technique.

So, one possibility is that your parents sought out treatment from an 'alternative medicine' practitioner who clung to the old ideas. More likely, however, is that they referred your condition to someone working within 'alternative medicine' who was working with relatively new ideas.

The 'hippy' period of the 1960's left a curious legacy, some of which lingers on to this day. All sorts of cures and treatments were attributed to various light therapies. There are still firms selling 'light-therapy' related items which are totally unrelated to SAD. I tracked down a relevant page on Google. It seems that the page no longer exists but its cached version is here:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:Pdup_dMVItEJ:www.net- sale.net/catalog/product_info.php%3FcPath%3D28%26product s_id%3D31+%22green+light+therapy%22+growth&hl=en& ;client=firefox-a
And guess what qualities are attributed to green light? Yes, these purveyors of items of dubious merit state that green light 'stimulates growth'.

So, it seems to me that the most likely reason why you were sitting there in front of that light is that your parents referred you to an

[Buenchico]

... 'alternative' therapist who was using hippy-style theories but applying them in a more traditional manner.

Chris

[tali122]

buenchico thanks for reply- i even know the place where the green light therapy took place -it was and still is an nhs centre-i was definately reffered by my GP- it would have been impossible for my parents to suggest this as they spoke very little english and still today wouldnt know what alternative medicine is- nor was it suggested by someone they knew-this was definately a gp nhs refferal-why it is not on my medical records puzzles me