Do Weather Changes Cause Joint Pain?
The Truth About “Coming Rains Mean Aches & Pains”
Grandma could predict an approaching storm when her joints ached, and she actually might have been onto something. It’s true that many people with back pain, neck pain or other joint complaints are often suprisingly accurate in predicting when storms are approaching. However, the weather by itself is not the cause of their symptoms. An underlying condition must exist first.
Weather changes affect the pain cycle in this way:
- Joint or ligament inflammation is present due to some type of dysfunction or injury, either recently or in the past.
- The extra swelling and build up of fluid from inflammation stretches sensitive soft tissue and membranes in and surrounding the joint.
- Storm fronts usually follow a lowered barometric pressure.
- Like a balloon under low pressure conditions, these barometric pressure decreases expand the extra fluid surrounding the joint, causing the body’s tissues and membranes to stretch even further.
- When the already swollen and sensitive tissue in an inflamed region expands in response to lowered barometric pressure associated with weather changes, pain nerve fibers are irritated and you become acutely aware that a storm is coming.
Tissue inside the body must already be experiencing some degree of inflammation for changes in the weather to cause pain, otherwise everyone would have pain in every joint when storms are brewing. In the vast majority of spine pain cases, this inflammation is due to dysfunction within a joint that affects the tissue, muscles and ligaments surrounding the joint.
Correct The Cause Of The Problem!
Fortunately, this means you don’t have to be hostage to the changing weather! At Ascent Chiropractic we locate and correct these areas of joint dysfunction to resolve the underlying condition, decreasing inflammation and eliminating pain at its source. If you’re feeling the effects of the changes in the weather, make an appointment at Ascent Chiropractic in Brookfield by calling 262-345-4166 or schedule an appointment with our online scheduling app.