Research from the University of Manchester into the potential association between damp weather and arthritis pain, shows what many sufferers had long suspected. The pain is indeed aggravated by damp conditions.
Daily data was supplied using a simple smartphone app from 2658 people around the UK, for six months. Participants had a range of painful conditions, but arthritis predominated. The smartphones’ GPS capability allowed researchers to correlate prevailing weather at participants’ locations with their reported pain. Humid days were likely to be more painful, whereas dry days were least likely. Low pressure and higher wind speed were also linked to more painful days, although to a lesser extent than humidity. Cold days that were damp and windy could also be more painful.
Professor Will Dixon of the University of Manchester, led the study. He said, “Weather has been thought to affect symptoms in patients with arthritis since Hippocrates. Around three quarters of people living with arthritis believe their pain is affected by the weather. The analysis showed that on damp and windy days with low pressure the chance of experiencing more pain, compared to an average day, was around 20%.”
Interestingly, traditional Chinese medicine has long recognised that wind, cold and damp can all aggravate joint pain and old injuries. One text, the Discussion on the Origin of All Illnesses from AD610, describes how wind, cold and damp cause swelling and pain. The new research above observed no association with temperature, when averaged across the population. My experience is patients will be more comfortable in dry cold conditions, as opposed to the damp cold of many a Devon winter.
(University of Manchester News website, accessed 24 October 2019.)