How the weather affects joint pain
So, this is quite a common question here in the clinic, and one that we hopefully answer for you.
It’s
not your imagination; the weather can affect your health and research can help us understand about the connection between weather and arthritis pain.
One leading theory points to changes in air
pressure. Although many people say that their pain worsens with damp, rainy
weather, research has shown that it’s not the cold, wind, rain, or snow, the thing that affects people most is barometric
pressure.
Barometric pressure is the
weight
of
the atmosphere that surrounds us.
If you imagine the tissues surrounding the
joints to be like a balloon, high barometric pressure that pushes against the
body from the outside will keep tissues from expanding.
But barometric pressure often drops before
bad weather sets in. This lower air pressure pushes less against the body,
allowing tissues to expand — and those expanded tissues can put pressure on
the joint.
Furthermore, when
people have chronic pain, sometimes nerves can become more sensitized because
of injury, inflammation, scarring, or adhesions, he says.
Nevertheless, the
link between pain and weather changes remains hypothetical; research has come
to mixed conclusions, all the results are not very clear,
meaning there are people who say that weather doesn’t affect their pain.”
One thing that is certain is that barometric pressure is a likely
explanation because it does affect people’s bodies.
“It’s not
metaphysical; it’s actually physical. It’s the same kind of thing that you have
with people who go up in a plane or astronauts.
At higher
altitudes, there’s less barometric pressure and our bodies react accordingly. When there’s less pressure, we expand, for example, even though plane cabins are pressurized, our feet often
swell during a flight, but not while we’re seated at our desks for similar
amounts of time at sea level.
Changes in temperature or barometric pressure, can trigger joint pain, though
researchers aren’t entirely sure why. In 2007, researchers at Tufts University
in Boston reported that every 10-degree drop in temperature corresponded with
an incremental increase in arthritis pain. Increasing barometric pressure was
also a pain trigger in the Tufts study.
Just to point out as well, we are all individuals, thus the weather can affect us all differently.
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