The Big Freeze

I’ve had a most interesting comment from a Coronet-user with Parkinson’s disease. He lives in the southern hemisphere in a very cool climate, and began using his Coronet in November 2025, going into the summer season. We are now in the first winter he has experienced since starting his Coronet.

Last winter (pre-Coronet), he struggled with being able to get warm, and this made life pretty miserable. This winter, though, he has been much more able to regulate his temperature and cope in the cold weather. The only thing that has changed since last winter is his use of the Coronet.

Is the Coronet really able to change the body’s ability to regulate temperature?

The short answer is yes.

The medical term is thermoregulatory dysfunction, meaning intolerance to changes in temperature that would, for anyone else, be easy to manage. It is an important symptom in people with Parkinson’s disease, although it rarely gets a mention, having to compete with the myriad other nonmotor symptoms, let alone the movement issues. It is a really rotten thing to experience, especially cold intolerance. It means that no matter what you do, you just can’t get warm. In the winter months, life is just miserable.

The way that the body copes with temperature fluctuations is, of course, complicated. There are sensors in the skin, connections from the skin to different parts of the brain, more connections from the brain to other parts of the body for action (for example, to the muscles to start generating heat by shivering when it is very cold).

And of course, so many things can go wrong. Alpha-synuclein can be deposited in key areas, there can be disruption to the connections between brain and body and between one part of the brain to another part, not to mention the chemical neurotransmitters going on strike. The brain is Mission Control, the thermostat, when it comes to thermoregulation, and in Parkinson’s disease (and other neurodegenerative conditions), it is the brain that is almost always the culprit when things go wrong.

Using the Duo Coronet twice daily sends light directly onto the neurones in the cortex, the outer part of the brain. We know that the two wavelengths reach at least three centimetres into the brain, and this means that many billions of brain cells get direct light, and activation of their cell batteries, the mitochondria. There are many neurones in the cortex that work with the deeper parts of the brain, and being newly charged with energy from the light exposure, they can influence the function of cells deeper in the brain. Added to this is the indirect effect of red and near infrared light, with mitochondria travelling through the bloodstream to areas that are struggling.

We’ve learned from the many many people using the Duo Coronet twice each day that a remarkable range of otherwise untreatable nonmotor symptoms can be improved. Many of the symptoms are surprising, and reinforce the fact that the brain is extraordinarily complicated. What, in theory, shouldn’t make much difference, can and does generate and maintain improvements.

If you struggle with the cold during winter, and/or the heat during summer, the Duo Coronet, used twice daily can improve your thermostat.

Thanks to Annie Spratt on Unsplash for the chill-inducing photo of an iceberg.