Written by Dr. Jen O'Sullivan, BCND
It is so exciting to get your patches for the first time! One of the early mistakes people can make is inadvertently activating their patches before they want to.
Infrared light is only blocked by glass or metal. The patches have stabilizers in them to keep them from getting activated in low temperatures, but if the temperature reaches in the 80s or 90s AND you have them close to you (within 6 inches or so) you may be activating all the patches in the sleeve. Also, do not carry a patch in your pocket to gift to someone. You will be giving them a dead patch!
I have personally seen this even on stage when a presenter is wanting you to see how easy it is to share patches and they pull out one single patch that they had conveniently tucked in their pant pocket. Not understanding the science, they would be giving someone a fully used and dead patch that won't work!
I have also heard of people who are cat owners have all of their patches get activated at once simply because the cat loves to sleep on the mail when it arrives.
A third way I have seen patches get activated mistakenly is quite interesting. I was sitting next to someone at convention who did not speak english. She had all of her patches mixed up in a plastic container. She was trying to find one specific patch (or at least that is what it looked like) in a sea of mixed up patches. She was holding them in her hands like playing cards, shuffling through them. I tried to tell her not to do this but she did not understand. She continued to fondle the pile of patches for about 10 minutes. It looked like she had done this often. My guess is, all of those patches have been activated and depending on how long they have been in that container, they are all dead.
The patches contain stabilizers to keep this from happening in most cases. The above examples don't typically happen, but it can happen. The stabilizers keep the patches from activating unless there is high heat AND infrared light imposed on the patches. LifeWave has done extensive testing to make sure the patches are stable even when being shipped to high temperature locations.
If, however, the patches are sitting in the baking sun for days at a time (such as your shipment arrived while you are on vacation and the postman left them in the direct sun on your front porch) you may contact LiveWave and let them know what happened and David confirmed to me personally that they will replace them for you. This is an extremely unlikely scenario, but again, it could happen.
So what should you do? Do not let your pets sleep on your patch sleeves and also do not carry your patches in your pocket or your purse that is carried directly next to your body. Also if you love taking really hot and long showers, don't keep your patches in the bathroom. Doing so may activate your patches. It is best to get a metal carry case or an insulated sleeve (LifeWave was selling these at the 2023 convention). You can use something like a cleaned out Altoid tin, or even buy some small tins on Amazon like these.
If you have found that the patches have done wonders for you for a few months and now they are doing nothing, you may have mistakenly activated your patches. While there is not anything you can do if you activated them yourself, just make sure to store them in a cool dark place away from infrared light!