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Effect of the the weather on musculoskeletal symptoms

Discussion in 'General Issues and Discussion Forum' started by NewsBot, Nov 15, 2011.

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  1. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1

    Members do not see these Ads. Sign Up.
    Fluctuation of pain by weather change in musculoskeletal disorders.
    Salek KM, Mamun MA, Parvin N, Ahmed SM, Khan MM, Rijvi AN, Rahman MH, Khasru MR, Akther A, Rahman M, Islam S, Emran A.
    Mymensingh Med J. 2011 Oct;20(4):645-51.
     
  2. Was it Rocky or Bullwinkle that had the weather bunion? (It was the moose, so which ever one he was).


    As an aside, how many authors did that paper have listed? :bash:
     
  3. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    I clicked on this thread hoping for an insight into the mechanism behind this phenomena. Doesn't look like this paper discusses that though. Chances of someone on here having access to the Mymensingh Medical Journal...?
     
  4. footankle.ca

    footankle.ca Welcome New Poster

    It would be interesting to see a study done on those same subjects where they are instituted into a room with fluctuating humidity and barometric pressures to see if they can tell the difference via an analogue pain scale. Bad weather and cold conditions don't generally make people happy or feel good. Is it therefore a surprise that they use this anecdote for pain exacerbation's? Get a control group situation and test the theory.
     
  5. efuller

    efuller MVP

    Bullwinkle




    That says it all
     
  6. I like the theory that the rapidly decreasing barometric pressure that accompanies low pressure systems and storms causes a expansion of the closed fluid compartment within the joints stimulating the receptors within the joint capsules. Ever take a bag of potato chips (crisps) up to altitude in the mountains?.....same physics lesson.....

    However, wouldn't think that the fluid within the joints would actually expand that much with slight changes in external barometric pressure, but it may not take much change in joint volume to cause the receptors to become stimulated...:cool:

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530174619.htm
     
  7. Orthican

    Orthican Active Member

    I have had soooo many oa patients over the years say the same thing.
    The barometric pressure certainly is the only plausible or at least reasonable explanation. "I feel winter" just does not do it for me.

    I've wondered if in fact the internal damage and increased cellular activity in say an osteoarthritic knee that already has swelling to begin with does not take much to push over the threshhold regarding decreased barometric pressure acting to allow increase in volume and therefore easier excitation? I have not much to prove that though. Just a thought I had.

    A proper study is the only way to know.
     
  8. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Effect of Weather on Back Pain: Results From a Case-Crossover Study
    Daniel Steffens, Chris G. Maher, Qiang Li, Manuela L. Ferreira, Leani S. M. Pereira, Bart W. Koes and Jane Latimer
    Arthritis Care & Research; Volume 66, Issue 12, pages 1867–1872, December 2014
     
  9. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    The influence of weather on the risk of pain exacerbation in patients with knee osteoarthritis – a case-crossover study
    M.L. Ferreira, Y. Zhang, B. Metcalf, J. Makovey, K.L. Bennell, L. March, D.J. Hunter
    Article in Press
     
  10. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
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    PUBLIC RELEASE: 7-SEP-2016
    Link between weather and chronic pain is emerging through innovative smartphone research
    UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
     
  11. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Influence of meteorological elements on balance control and pain in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis
    Peultier, L., Lion, A., Chary-Valckenaere, I. et al.
    Int J Biometeorol (2016). doi:10.1007/s00484-016-1269-x
     
  12. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Acute Low Back Pain? Do Not Blame the Weather—A Case-Crossover Study.
    Keira Beilken, Mark J. Hancock, Chris G. Maher, Qiang Li, Daniel Steffens.
    Pain Medicine, 2016; pnw126 DOI: 10.1093/pm/pnw126
     
  13. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
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    Association between acute gouty arthritis and meteorological factors: An ecological study using a systematic review and meta-analysis.
    Park KY et al
    Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2017 May 20. pii: S0049-0172(17)30080-X. doi: 10.1016/j.semarthrit.2017.05.006
     
  14. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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    Press Release:
    Rain increases joint pain? Google suggests otherwise
    People’s activity levels – increasing as temperatures rise, to a point – are likelier than the weather itself to cause pain that motivates online searches, UW Medicine researcher says
    Charts illustrate that hip- and knee-pain searches increased as temperatures rose. Photos by Thinkstock; data courtesy of Scott Telfer, UW Medicine

    SEATTLE – Some people with achy joints and arthritis swear that weather influences their pain. New research, perhaps the deepest, data-based dive into this suggestion, finds that weather conditions in 45 U.S. cities are indeed associated with Google searches about joint pain.

    As temperatures rose within the study’s focus span of 23 degrees to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, searches about knee and hip pain rose steadily, too. Knee-pain searches peaked at 73 degrees and were less frequent at higher temperatures. Hip-pain searches peaked at 83 degrees and then tailed off. Rain actually dampened search volumes for both.

    The findings, published today in PLOS ONE, indicate that people’s activity level – increasing as temperatures rise, to a point – is likelier than the weather itself to cause pain that spurs online searches, say investigators from UW Medicine in Seattle and Harvard University.

    “We were surprised by how consistent the results were throughout the range of temperatures in cities across the country,” said Scott Telfer, a UW Medicine researcher in orthopedics and sports medicine. He collaborated with Nick Obradovich, a postdoctoral fellow in science, technology and public policy at Harvard.

    The researchers used Google Trends, a resource that reflects global use of the company’s search engine. They created search strings of words and phrases for hip pain, knee pain and arthritis, as well as a control search related to stomach pain.

    From the 50 most populous U.S. cities, they sought daily summaries of local weather data from Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2015. The data included temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and barometric pressure – variables previously suggested as associated with increases in musculoskeletal pain. Five cities were dropped from the final results due to incomplete data.

    Google Trends expresses data in weekly, not daily, increments, which slightly limited the findings’ precision vis-à-vis time. Temperatures and searches below 23 degrees were aggregated into one group, as were temperatures and searches above 86 degrees. Those two groups of combined temperatures correspond with somewhat less scientific confidence, Telfer acknowledged, but the trend of fewer searches, relative to both 23 and 86 degrees, was evident in each group.

    Among the weather variables, only temperature and precipitation were found to have statistically significant associations, and only with searches for knee and hip pain. Searches about arthritis, which Telfer said was the study’s impetus, had no discernible correlation with weather factors.

    “You hear people with arthritis say they can tell when the weather is changing,” he said. “But with past studies there’s only been vague associations, nothing very concrete, and our findings align with those.”

    “We were surprised by how consistent the results were throughout the range of temperatures in cities across the country,” said Scott Telfer, a UW Medicine researcher in orthopedics and sports medicine.

    The stomach-pain searches functioned well as a control: Those volumes were greater at low and high temperature extremes and ebbed in mild temperatures, a very different pattern from the knee- and hip-pain searches.

    Because knee- and hip-pain searches increased as temperatures rose until it grew uncomfortably hot, and rainy days tended to slightly reduce search volumes for hip and knee pain, the researchers inferred that “changes in physical activity levels” were primarily responsible for those searches.

    “We haven’t found any direct mechanism that links ambient temperature with pain. What we think is much more likely explanation is the fact that people are more active on nice days, so more prone to have overuse and acute injuries from that and to search online for relevant information. That’s our hypothesis for what we’ll explore next,” said Telfer, an acting assistant professor in orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

    The interest in using internet data, he added, stems from the fact that web searches are increasingly people’s first response to experiencing adverse health symptoms.
     
  15. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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    News Release 21-Sep-2021
    Weather can affect pain tolerance, reports study in PAIN®
    September 21, 2021 – Can the weather affect pain from conditions like arthritis or migraine? It may sound like an old superstition – but on some standard quantitative sensory tests, weather-related factors do indeed affect pain tolerance, suggests a study in PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

    "Although observational, these findings suggest that weather has a causal, non-linear, dynamic effect on pain tolerance," according to the new research, led by Erlend Hoftun Farbu, PhD student at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. But it remains unclear if the link between weather and pain involves physiological or psychological factors, or a combination of factors.

    Weather-related factors affect two standard pain assessments

    The study included participants in the Tromsø Study, an ongoing study of the health of people in that city in Northern Norway, located north of the Arctic Circle. About 19,500 participants, average age 57 years, were evaluated on two quantitative sensory tests, widely used in research studies. The pressure pain tolerance test (PPT) measured the subjects' ability to tolerate pain from steadily increasing pressure applied to the lower leg. The cold pain tolerance test (CPT) measured how long they could tolerate immersion of the hand in cold water.

    Results of the pain tolerance tests were analyzed in relation to data on weather conditions - temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, relative humidity, and wind speed. Associations between pain tolerance and meteorological factors were assessed, along with seasonal or shorter-term variations.

    Overall, the PPT results showed no significant seasonal variation and were not strongly related to weather-related variables when considering the whole study period. However, the correlations varied depending on the time period studied. The data suggested “non-random short-term variation” in PPT outcomes – the time frame of short-term variations in PPT mirrored the time frame of the weather. Additionally, temperature and barometric pressure predicted future PPT values.

    In contrast, the CPT results showed clear seasonal variation – subjects were able to tolerate cold-induced pain longer during colder times of year. Cold pain tolerance also varied with weather-related variables. "This fits nicely together with research on cold adaptation," Mr. Farbu comments. "As you get used to cold, you might be able to tolerate more cold.”

    He adds, "Temperature and barometric pressure seems to be most strongly related to CPT and PPT, and they predict future PPT. However, the effect of temperature is likely influenced by humidity and wind, as they might alter the heat loss."

    Many people, particularly those with chronic pain, believe that weather or weather-related factors can cause or aggravate episodes of pain. While some studies have supported associations between weather and pain, others have reached conflicting results.

    "If we are correct about that the relationship is dynamic and non-linear, it might very well explain why many studies find small effects and conflicting results," Mr. Farbu comments. "If an effect is changing over time and you average it over time, you might end up with no effect."

    The findings, especially for CPT, "should be considered when planning future studies on pain tolerance," the researchers write. They discuss some ways in which weather might affect pain tolerance. One possible explanation is "central mechanisms," with weather-related variables affecting parts of the brain involved in pain processing. Alternatively, weather might affect people's mental status – as in seasonal depression, for example – which could affect their capacity to endure pain.

    "In summary, it is unlikely that one singular mechanism can explain the variations in pain tolerance observed," Mr. Farbu and coauthors conclude. "t is more probable that this is the net result of many, possibly antagonistic, mechanisms."
     
  16. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    To tolerate weather and to tolerate pain
    two sides of the same coin? The Tromsø Study 7

    Farbu, Erlend Hoftuna et al
    PAIN: September 9, 2021 -
     
  17. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Come rain or shine: Is weather a risk factor for musculoskeletal pain? A systematic review with meta-analysis of case-crossover studies
    Manuela L Ferreira et al
    Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2024 Jan 28:65:152392
     
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