Pressure-Induced Pains - Fact or Fiction?

johnstein asks: "Sure, everyone knows that person who is always blaming their aches and pains on the weather, be it Gramps and his knee, Aunt Edna with her arthritic hands, or *that* guy at work who swears his big toe begins to throbs whenever it's going to rain. Ok, maybe I am one those people too. I've had exactly TWO migraine-class headaches in the past month: the evening of August 9th and the afternoon of August 17th. Googling produced a very useful website that provides historical weather data. After a bit of searching I found this chart that clearly shows similar barometric trends for the days in question (barometric pressure near 30 inches and rising). Is this just a coincidence? My googling suggests that while some believe the human body is highly sensitive to weather changes, others claim that the minute changes in barometric pressure would unlikely be a cause for pain in the head or joints. While stress, eating habits, and general lifestyle might be a more likely candidate, can weather claim some of the blame as well?"

Comments

I'm only answering because I'm omnipotent but

[xanderwilson]

Yes. Next question.

Alex.

Need a little more data

[Otter]

I'm no stats genius and the least publishable unit for medical journals is pretty low but before you go submitting this to JAMA:

1) n=2 is a pretty minimal data set. You'd probably want some more data points -- or at least you would if the subject weren't yourself.

2) The fact that 100% of your headaches occur with air pressure of ~30 and rising would be more remarkable if it weren't ~30 and rising every other day in that area. I'd estimate the significance of your discovery at p = 0.5.

lube

[austad]

Just spray some WD-40 on your head. My uncle claims that it works wonders for his knee when it's about to rain. Then again, he probably smokes crack about the same time, so that might have something to do with it also...

Cause and effect

[Bioinfo]

Of course, it's always possible that your headaches are causing the weather disturbances. Never underestimate your own importance in the Grand Scheme of Things (tm).