They have a saying here in the Northeast - "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." And with winter approaching (much faster than I'd like), the weather is really all over the place.

 

Such unreliable weather doesn't just make outfit choice difficult. It also can have significant consequences for people with arthritis or other types of knee pain. You always hear stories about people using body aches to predict the weather; many swear an increased pain level forecasts a storm better than any meteorologist could. In addition, other people say their knees hurt more in colder weather. So how much does weather really affect knee pain? Is there any scientific proof or is the correlation just built upon anecdotal evidence? With the weather acting up (Last weekend in Boston, it snowed. This weekend, I walked around in flip-flops), I decided to look into it.

 

According to John Hopkins Medicine, the evidence is conflicting. One study tracked Argentinean people living with and without arthritis for a year. Those with a form of arthritis reported more pain in low temperatures; those without it were unaffected. How humidity and air pressure affected patients varied depending on their type of condition. People with rheumatoid arthritis were affected by both high humidity and high pressure, people with osteoarthritis were affected by high humidity, and people with fibromyalgia by high pressure. Another study, however, looked at Floridians with arthritis and found no relationship between pain and weather.

 

Another study I found, from 2007, found that lower temperatures and higher barometric pressures increased pain in osteoarthritis patients. My next question was, why would different weather conditions affect body aches?   

 

A common theory seems to be that changes in barometric pressure affect the pressure within a knee joint. Barometric pressure often drops before a storm, and experts think this might cause tissues in the knee joint to swell, leading to arthritic pain. However, this swelling is too tiny to be measured scientifically, so the idea remains theoretical. Another idea floating around is that the pain has a more psychological or indirect cause. For example, people tend to feel down on gloomy days - would that make their pain more difficult to handle? Also, people tend to lounge around the house on rainy or cold afternoons - does this lack of action make their joints stiffer?

 

It seems there is no easy answer to the question, but anecdotal evidence definitely seems to suggest a relationship between pain and weather. Anyone out there have tales of amazing weather prediction feats? Do you have a better track record than your local meteorologist? All this research made me curious - I'd love to hear stories of how well your pain correlates with weather changes. Thanks :)