Scientists have not found a conclusive link between weather and body pain, Beck writes, but a leading theory suggests that the falling barometric pressure preceding a storm alters the pressure inside joints.
“Think of a balloon that has as much air pressure on the outside pushing in as on the inside pushing out,” Harvard’s Robert Jamison says, adding that as the outside pressure drops, the balloon—or joint—expands, pressing against surrounding nerves and other tissues.
“That’s probably the effect that people are feeling, particularly if those nerves are irritated in the first place,” Jamison says, adding that research has shown that changes in barometric pressure has been linked to everything from tooth aches and scar pain to pelvic pain and fibromyalgia.
Patience White—vice president of the Arthritis Foundation and George Washington University rheumatologist—notes that arthritis is “more common in people with some sort of effusion” or a buildup of fluid in or around a joint. She adds that not every arthritic patient experiences such weather-related pain.
Still, “there are certain days where practically every patient complains of increased pain,” says Aviva Wolff, an occupational therapist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. “The more dramatic the weather change, the more obvious it is,” she adds.
Such pain is so common that the Weather Channel and AccuWeather have “ache” and “pain” indexes for the nation, based on barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind.
Not just joint pain
The link between weather and pain is not limited to arthritis and storms, according to research released in September in the International Journal of Biometerology and presented at the European Society of Cardiology.
According to the research, cold weather may raise the risk of stroke, heart attack, and sudden cardiac death, including:
- A 7% increase in risk of heart attack for every 18-degree drop in temperature; and
- A 1.2% increase in sudden cardiac death for every 1.8-degree drop in temperature.
Other researchers believe that the cold-related increased heart risk may be due to thickening blood and constricting blood vessels, Beck writes. Some researchers maintain that there is no link between weather and physical pain.
Is it all in my head?
After comparing the pain reports of 18 rheumatoid-arthritis patients with local weather conditions for a year, Stanford psychologist Amos Tversky came up with a different theory. “People’s beliefs about arthritis pain and the weather may tell more about the workings of the mind than of the body,” he said.
Research has found that even slight changes in the weather can aggravate sensory nerve cells that relay pain signals to the brain. Some health experts believe the phenomenon explains why some people with neuropathic pain and phantom-limb pain also report weather-related flare-ups
Source: http://www.advisory.com