Weather pains are described as aches and pains that people feel – in particular joint pains or migraines that are brought about by changes in the weather of barometric pressure. For instance if one has arthritis, that pain may get worse when there is a storm brewing, or the pain may worsen during humid or wet conditions.
Old injuries to bones may start to ache once again, a person’s fibromyalgia symptoms may worsen and those with carpal tunnel syndrome may find that they are in greater discomfort due to such weather changes. In fact when some people say things like “There’s a storm coming; I can feel it in my bones” they may be speaking literally.
So are weather pains a reality; do pain symptoms actually worsen in certain weather? This would seem to be the case with many complaining that their symptoms get worse in certain weather.
Though the course of conditions such as arthritis may not be altered by the weather, could the weather impact the symptoms of the disease; with warm and dry climate meaning that a person suffers less pain?
Well, studies in this connection have now shown themselves to be definitive but research has in fact found that barometric pressuretends to impact pain levels and that changes could aggravate pain with a number of different underlying causes.
Many of us have probably experienced a worsening of our pain symptoms at times when the weather changes to become colder or hotter – for instance many of us complain that the winter makes our bones ache a lot worse.
Rather than the temperature changes it is thought that the barometric pressure is what causes people to say that they can predict the weather. The fact that pressure can impact pain, is also demonstrated by how we experience pain during the ascent or decent of an airplane.
This impact of the barometric pressure on chronic pain caused due to inflammatory conditions was measured in a study performed on lab rats. When the rats were subjected to low temperature and low pressure environments, they were seen to experience pain.
Studies examining the effects of barometric pressure on migraines also found that this can be a triggering factor for bringing on such a severe headache. Levels of humidity and the temperature also could predict or determine when a headache comes on – while many migraine sufferers find that a lessening of humidity and the temperature could trigger one, others find that the opposite is true.
