I developed knee issues when I was in seventh grade, chronic tendinitis. After a couple of years, I noticed that my knees would begin to hurt more just hours or sometimes a day before it was supposed to rain. It became a running joke in my family that when my knees hurt to get out our umbrellas. The weird part is how accurate my knee pain could detect when it was going to rain. Is there an actual reason behind this or is it just a weird coincidence?
According to WebMD, Robert Newlin Jamison, PhD, has studied weather related joint pain and found that the barometric pressure changes could be what is causing the pain. He interviewed people in different cities, to get different people affected in different climates, and found that “Two-thirds said they were pretty sure that weather seems to affect their pain,” he says.
Even though there is a strong correlation between the weather pressure and joint pain, it can not be proven because there are people who do not feel increased pain when the weather changes, stated Jamison.
Elaine Husni MD, a rheumatologist at the Cleveland Clinic, states that the weather does not make arthritis worse but just alters the symptoms, (which in my opinion makes it FEEL worse).
I think a good experiment that could be conducted is to get a large sample size of people with arthritis or other joint issues, and do an MRI of the affected joint on a normal warm sunny day, and then do one again on a rainy cold day. This would then show the amount of inflammation the person is facing on those types of days. This could than make the correlation stronger between weather and joint pain. It would have to be a large random sample size though because of other variables that might increase joint pain.
Resources:
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/weather_and_pain?page=2
http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2012/06/the-weather-and-arthritis-does-rain-increase-pain/
This is a tricky one. There can be other contributing factors rather than correlating join pain and weather changes. Chance is always a thought. It’s difficult to say that your joints can tell when the weather is going to change because nothing has yet to be proven. If a study was done, many things could go wrong. Depending on how extreme the pain is, age, the physical activity that has been done, and other illnesses or setbacks could have affect on the study. This idea is still up in the air and until anything is proven, I don’t think it is true and is just something people often associate climate change with. A article done by Johns Hopkins stated, “Patients in all three groups experienced more pain on days when the temperature was low, while people in the control group were unaffected by any of the weather conditions. In addition, patients with rheumatoid arthritis were affected by high humidity and high pressure; osteoarthritis patients by high humidity; and those with fibromyalgia by high pressure. However, the associations were not strong enough to allow pain to predict weather, or vice versa.”
http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/reports/arthritis/44-1.html
A study would be a great idea in order to come to the conclusion that the weather affects joint pain. “It’s one of the most common questions that patients will ask,” said Fant. “At first I doubted because there was not a lot of scientific evidence to support the correlation between arthritic symptoms and the weather. But I’ve been practicing for nearly 20 years and I’ve heard it so often from so many patients that I know there’s something to it, according to James Fant, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of rheumatology at the School of Medicine’s University Specialty Clinics”. There must be something that triggers joint pain by the weather. Many studies have been done about this topic but most are inconclusive because some get affected by weather, while others don’t. But there could be third variables involved such as a psychological problem.
My cousin also had surgery on her knee and can also predict the weather through an increased pain where she had the surgery done. This article from the Arthritis Foundation says that according to a 2007 study done at Tufts University, there is a correlation between increase in barometric pressure and joint pain. It also says the study found that a 10-degree decrease in temperature could also cause this same pain. I think because of first principles there can’t be reverse causation, because the pain comes in anticipation of the rain: http://www.arthritistoday.org/about-arthritis/arthritis-pain/living-with-pain/weather-pain.php. Yet, it seems that most of the correlations drawn between joint pain and the weather are anecdotal or observational, as seen in this Wall St. Journal article: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304500404579127833656537554. However, it seems that more studies will need to be done on this, and the Wall St. Journal briefly talks about studies on guinea pigs that may show a correlation between back pain and weather. More studies like the Tufts study need to be done in order to show a true connection between joint pain and incoming rain.
There are two studies mentioned in this article, http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/reports/arthritis/44-1.html, both with fewer than 200 people however. The second study measured the amount of pain suffered by people with osteoarthritis in Florida in accordance with the barometric pressure and found nothing conclusive. The first study concluded that the associations of the amount of pain and the temperature were not strong enough to predict each other. Maybe there is another variable in which the pain and the weather are connected, such as the amount of sun these people receive.
Your post is very interesting, but I believe that it is just a huge coincidence. I never had any issues relating to arthritis before, but I think that the correlation between rain and arthritis is due to chance. However there are people who disagree with me such as James Fant, who says “…I believe there is a connection simply because I’ve heard too many patients tell me that they are absolutely sure when it’s going to rain because their knees will hurt more.” Fant believes in this theory strictly because he has heard complaints about it so many times by so many different patients. Although nothing has been found, people still complain about it. So I am really not sure whether this is a fact or not. It could go either way at this point. However, if I had to choose, I would pick that it is not true because no evidence has been found to prove it. Finally, I totally agree and love the experiment that you came up with, it would be perfect.
For more information, click on this link: http://specialtyclinics.med.sc.edu/joint_pain.asp
The idea of a large experiment to determine the correlation between joint pain and the weather is a good one but it wouldn’t be very accurate. There are too many other variables at play here. For example, I tore my ACL last April which obviously resulted in a lot of pain. Some days I have really good days where I feel as if my leg is as strong as it used to be and then other days I will look down at my knee and the swelling is so severe I fear I’ve torn something again. I don’t think it’s due to climate changes but even so you would have to make sure that the people in your experiment do the same exact amount of activity on the sunny day as on the rainy day. This way you would rid yourself and your data of any third variables and eliminate the possible result of a false hypothesis.