Robbie Bner's journey with Therasage is a familiar one in the wellness world — personal crisis as catalyst, then years of obsessive research, then products built from that experience. His daughter's Lyme disease diagnosis sent him down a path that eventually produced devices with a 98.9% emissivity rating, designed to deliver red and near-infrared wavelengths directly into tissue. The claim, at its core, is this: specific wavelengths of light can penetrate the skin and stimulate cellular energy production, supporting recovery, detoxification, and repair.
That claim is not fringe. It has legitimate mechanistic grounding, even if the product landscape around it is noisy.
The mechanism here is photobiomodulation — the same cellular pathway that makes sunlight biologically essential. Red light, in the 630-700 nanometer range, and near-infrared, in the 800-1100 nanometer range, are absorbed by cytochrome c oxidase in the mitochondria. This absorption enhances ATP production, reduces oxidative stress, and triggers downstream signaling cascades that affect inflammation, tissue repair, and even gene expression.
This is well-documented in peer-reviewed literature, particularly for wound healing, musculoskeletal pain, and neuroprotection. The research on infrared specifically — which penetrates deeper into tissue than visible red — overlaps meaningfully with what we know from sauna science. Both modalities elevate tissue temperature locally, upregulate heat shock proteins, and promote circulation. The difference is the mechanism: sauna works broadly through systemic heat stress, while targeted infrared works locally through photonic absorption.
The disagreement in this space is less about whether photobiomodulation works and more about dosing, device quality, and what conditions it actually moves the needle on. Emissivity matters enormously — a device claiming 60% emissivity delivers a fraction of the photonic energy of one at 98.9%. This is where the consumer market gets murky. The underlying biology is solid. The product implementation varies wildly.
Lyme disease specifically remains contested territory. Some practitioners see infrared as a genuine supportive tool for managing Lyme's inflammatory burden. Others are more cautious, noting that the evidence base for Lyme specifically is largely anecdotal rather than clinical. What's not contested: reducing systemic inflammation and supporting mitochondrial function are broadly beneficial, regardless of the underlying condition.
If you're already incorporating contrast therapy or sauna into your protocol, targeted red and near-infrared light is a logical complement — particularly for localized recovery. Use it on joints, on areas of chronic tension, or on muscle groups after training. Ten to twenty minutes per session at the appropriate wavelength and power density. Morning or midday, not late evening — near-infrared can be activating. Don't expect it to replace sleep, movement, or nutrition. Think of it as a signal amplifier for systems already working.
Here's what I find most interesting about Robbie's work: his 98.9% emissivity number is essentially the same measurement used to evaluate far-infrared sauna heaters. The best ceramic and carbon sauna emitters target that same threshold — as close to a perfect blackbody radiator as you can get. Which means the therapeutic principle underlying a Therasage healing pad and a high-quality sauna panel is, at the physics level, identical. You're delivering infrared radiation at near-perfect efficiency directly to biological tissue. The sauna does it to your whole body. The pad does it to a shoulder or a knee. Same signal. Different scale. The body's response — increased local circulation, reduced inflammation, enhanced cellular repair — follows the same logic either way.