Painful Arthritis Day? It Might be in the Air

On this website, we like the idea that human beings are, at least most of the time, in charge of their health.

But occasionally, something comes along that is all around us and mostly out of our control, but still responsible for an awful lot of our arthritis pain.

There is, however, something you can do to protect yourself from this uncontrollable factor for arthritis.

Many people with arthritis have observed that their symptoms fluctuate with the weather. The most common complaint is that pain worsens during periods when it is cold outside.

Unfortunately, research on this topic has been rather mixed, with some studies finding associations between particular weather conditions and arthritis symptoms and others detecting no weather-related pattern at all.

When scientific studies are this inconsistent, it usually means that scientists do not yet understand the variables (or factors) they are trying to study. For example, if they want to know whether cold weather worsens arthritis pain, but the reality is that air pressure actually affects it, their studies in cities with different air pressure scores will yield different results in cold weather.

Before discussing some of the studies, it is also important to remind you that you understand your own pain and its causes better than any scientist ever can. So if you always experience an increase in pain under specific weather conditions, trust your own judgment.

In a study printed in the Journal of Rheumatology in 2002, Argentinian researchers asked 52 osteoarthritis and 82 rheumatoid arthritis patients to keep diaries to record their pain levels throughout the whole of 1998. They then tried to correlate the most painful periods with the prevailing weather conditions.

They found that rheumatoid arthritis pain definitely worsened on days with low temperatures, high atmospheric pressure, or high humidity.

On the other hand, only low temperature and high humidity were related to severe pain in osteoarthritis patients.

These researchers specifically mentioned that the weather conditions on the days before and after the painful days were not relevant, so unless you’re weather office is extremely accurate, you may not be able to predict your pain ahead of time.

A Norwegian academic’s survey of all the scientific literature on this question, published in the European Journal of Pain in 2011, argued that the clear results of the Argentinian study were a fluke, as most available studies actually showed the relationship between weather and arthritis pain to be near zero. However, the author did admit that large minorities of participants in most studies clearly experienced weather-related fluctuation in symptoms, and that especially cold and wet conditions seemed relevant to these minorities.

In another review of the published literature that appeared in the Journal of Rheumatology in 2004, Dutch academics agreed that the majority of studies failed to find a clear relationship, except possibly for the idea that high humidity aggravates pain.

They speculated that the lack of consistent results stemmed from the overlap in weather conditions. For example, sometimes humidity is present while it is cold and rainy, while at other times high humidity occurs when it is extremely hot. If arthritis sufferers struggle on humid days, researchers would necessarily have to record that they struggle on both hot and cold days too, as that is when the humidity is at its highest. That does make the results appear inconsistent.

To summarize, follow your own experience, as scientists are still confused. Dress up warmly if cold temperatures trigger it and use a dehumidifier and wear rainproof clothes if humidity and water trigger it.

For concrete, effective, and science-based tips to prevent or minimize arthritis, follow thousands of your peers and download our arthritis guide.