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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?"
For some number of years I thought my allergy symptoms were related to high pressure systems. After looking at pressure records, they certainly seemed correlated with my sniffling and sneezing. Some of my friends were having headaches at the same time.
However, I have an alternate explanation for my allergies -- high pressure systems affect winds and winds can bring in pollens. The high pressure systems in Northern California come from the west. As they go east, they blow pollen, pesticides, etc. from the California Central Valley to the coast (where I live). At other times we have relatively clean air (well, there's smog...). So when the dirty air comes in, I sneeze. In this theory, high pressure and my allergy symptoms are correlated but high pressure itself isn't the direct cause of those symptoms.
It's just a theory, though. I'm willing to believe that air pressure can affect your health, but I'm also willing to be convinced otherwise. At this point I don't have enough data. I'd love to hear the experiences of others.
- Amit...like, implanted medical equipment.
I shattered my lower left leg. Recovery has been very, very good, but I still have a small pin/screw through the ankle. The rate of expansion/contraction of [whatever material it is, probably surgical steel] is not quite the same as that of bone, because on hot and humid days like today, that ankle hurts like a sonuvabitch.
The surgeon and all the staff told me I would probably be able to predict thunderstorms for as long as I have the pin in, but would also be going through a tad more Advil than normal. :-)
(I'm not complaining. I'm alive and can walk!)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The medical consensus seems to be "probably". Like most Ask Slashdot questions that don't pertain directly to geek topics, a nice thorough answer can be found at Straight Dope.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
My wife used to take Immitrex for migraines, until she discovered that it was a side-effect of her birth control pills that seemed to be causing the migraines.
Her GYN had her try a couple different birth control prescriptions (different brand, smaller doses, etc.) and she has gone from 1-2 migraines a month to maybe 1-2 a year. It was a godsend to her, not to mention a lot cheaper without Immitrex!
Along with most people here, I've seen pretty good anecdotal evidence to believe that aches and pains can predict the weather. Ultimately, the only way you're going to find out is if you track changes in barometric pressure each day and log all aches and pains for a while.
However, while you're doing so, I'd recommend that you also log your caffeine intake. Over a decade of nearly migrane-level headaches has become just a part of my past since I discovered that caffeine withdrawl was causing my problem and simply swore off of caffeine permanently. Most people who have aches and pains before the weather have them in their joints. I've never heard of headaches as a symptom before.
Check your caffeine intake levels as an indicator.
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This has been happening to me for 30 years.
My neurosurgeon explained it like this: when the ambient atmospheric pressure rises, the compensatory inner cellular pressure rises to match it so that the cells keep their shape etc.
When the atmospheric pressure falls, the compensatory cellular pressure falls.
The problem is the old adjust-the-shower system problem: it takes a while for the cells to adjust. So for a time, when the pressure falls and before the cells have had time to adjust, there is swelling. This swelling happens to the cells in the nervous system.
When the nerves swell they can touch the passageways through which they go from the spine to the extremities. This is particularly true of the nerves that go from the neck through the shoulder and from the lumbar spine through the hips (the sciatic branch). This causes referred pain in the extremities. So that's why you get people with arthritis to complain.
The swelling also affects joint tissue, causing the tissues to suffer more from the abrasions of the bone spurs etc.
It's hell.