Chiropractic Laser Leadership

The origin story of laser therapy spans continents, professions, and decades of scientific evolution. The earliest spark came from a Hungarian surgeon, Dr. Endre Mester, who unintentionally discovered that low-intensity light could accelerate tissue healing and stimulate biological repair. His observations laid the scientific cornerstone of photobiomodulation. Europe embraced that discovery and used therapeutic lasers in hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and research institutions for decades. By the time the United States began to acknowledge that low-level laser technology had medical value, Europe already regarded it as a practical tool for supporting recovery.

However, when laser therapy finally entered the American landscape, it was not surgeons, physical therapists, or medical specialists who recognized its potential and developed it into a respected therapeutic discipline. It was chiropractors. This occurred because doctors of chiropractic have always been aligned with biologically grounded, physics-based, and non-invasive approaches to healing. I'm proud to have been one of Virginia's first to help patients with laser therapy (2004-present).

Chiropractors have historically favored methods that influence physiology through physics, mechanics, and cellular processes rather than drugs. When therapeutic laser photobiomodulation appeared, chiropractors recognized exactly what it represented. It was safe, it was logical, it was grounded in observable biological mechanisms, and it complemented the way they already approached human health.

The defining moment came when chiropractor Dr. Terry Shanks and his family founded Erchonia. Although Europe had decades of experience with therapeutic lasers, no American company had committed itself to advancing therapeutic laser science or navigating the regulatory landscape that would legitimize it nationally. Erchonia changed everything. Under chiropractic leadership, the company designed true low-level lasers, built clinical protocols, funded Level-1 research, and achieved the first FDA clearances for non-thermal photobiomodulation. This achievement placed therapeutic lasers on the map in the United States and established a scientific foothold that no other profession had created.

Chiropractors did not merely adopt laser therapy; they became the primary innovators, practitioners, and educators who elevated it. The technology fit seamlessly into chiropractic practice because it supported cellular repair, reduced inflammation, accelerated recovery, and enhanced function without relying on pharmaceuticals. Chiropractors were already positioned to value a modality that stimulates healing without cutting tissue, burning tissue, or chemically altering physiology. This allowed the profession to advance a technology that many other healthcare providers overlooked. I'm quite proud to have been part of this movement.

While chiropractors were integrating therapeutic lasers into daily clinical practice, other American healthcare sectors focused on entirely different technologies. Medical doctors emphasized pharmaceuticals and procedural interventions. Surgeons concentrated on high-powered cutting lasers and invasive techniques. Dentists embraced surgical lasers capable of removing tissue but rarely adopted low-level photobiomodulation. Physical therapists lacked the regulatory latitude to adopt therapeutic lasers widely. None of these professions championed the gentle healing potential of low-intensity light. As a result, chiropractic emerged as the only profession to advance cold-laser therapy across research, clinical training, and patient care.

The world’s therapeutic laser movement may have begun in Europe, and its foundational science may have come from a Hungarian operating room, but its American development was driven almost entirely by chiropractors. Erchonia, founded by a chiropractor, transformed photobiomodulation from an underutilized European insight into a validated, FDA-cleared, clinically respected technology in the United States. Chiropractors embraced it, refined it, expanded its uses, and demonstrated its value in thousands of practices worldwide.

Laser therapy became a global discipline not because it originated in chiropractic, but because chiropractic recognized its significance earlier and more clearly than any other profession. Chiropractors became the world leaders because they shared the same philosophical foundation as the technology itself. Both remain committed to healing through biological support rather than biological disruption. Both prioritize precision over force. Both are designed to stimulate what the body can do naturally when given the proper signal. In that respect, the marriage between chiropractic and photobiomodulation was not accidental. It was inevitable.