>>On examination, we find that two studies say an increase in barometric pressure is strongly linked to an increase in pain in arthritis sufferers, while the other two say it’s strongly linked to a decrease in pain. At first glance that seems to support R & T’s view that research results have been all over the map. But the strong statistical correlation claimed in all the studies suggests that it may be a change in pressure, not necessarily the direction of the change, that is linked to increased arthritis pain<<
Shouldn’t the last words be, "that is linked to a change (wheher more pain or less pain)?
The studies didn’t claim that a lessening of pressure, etc. increased pain. They said lessening led to decreased pain.
A link to the column you’re commenting on is appreciated. Providing one can be as simple as pasting the URL into your post, making sure to leave a blank space on either side of it. Like so: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_057.html
I can’t tell when the weather is going to change, and truth be told the problem has gone away now that I live in Los Angeles. But when I lived in the DC region, my knee always ached whenever a rain storm came around. Totally reactive, but there was no question about a correlation between the two events. (It was a dull ache, nothing bad, just really felt it climbing stairs, that sort of thing. Nothing remotely disabilitating.)
Unobservant college student that I was then, it took me about a year of “why is my knee hurting today?” to realize the common factor was the rain. And I don’t have arthritis, so I figure those who do have it will probably feel the effects much more strongly.
There. A 2,400 year old question has finally been settled to my satisfaction. Screw everyone else.
I am a chronic pain person. I have arthritis as well as other inflammatory diseases. I ache when the weather is changing in either direction. If the barometer drops and we get rain, snow, and/or wind, I ache miserably. If the barometer rises my pain is more than tolerable, I actually feel good, especially on sunny days. No doubt in my mind that weather conditions affect my pain level.
This is a great column! Finally something that address the big deficiencies in modern medical research and how it loves to jump to firm [often cynical] conclusions by ignoring the countless possibilities and contingencies that may underlie the small bit of narrow observation that is a study.
Of course, I’m not surprised to see stuff like this coming from Cecil. He’s a smart guy. I just wish the attitude percolated to many of the posters on SDMB and spread across the intellectual community. Studies are pinholes. Truth is a complex, ugly mess.
That I have osteoarthritis is a given. My blood tests show that my rheumatoid factor is positive, but the doctors are hesitant about giving me a thumbs up on either rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. Either way, I ache in places not affected by the osteoarthritis during weather changes and during stormy weather.
Well, in case anyone has some interest in some more anecdotal evidence, I had back surgery about 11 years ago and still to this day suffer from chronic back pain. I truly believe my back pain partially, but quite markedly, correlates with rain and humidity. I clearly have pain that’s in response to, say, a day of heavy lifting or from a sudden jolt (one time my back was out for over a week from a sneeze!), but there’s a different kind of pain, more of a general ache, that comes when it rains a lot for several days.
Being a passionate skeptic, not to mention someone who remembers quite clearly reading an article about a study which found no correlation between arthritis and humidity during his psych studies in college as part of a lecture demonstrating the concept of “illusory correlation”, I’ve always tried to view my observations through a critical eye. I often thought of keeping a journal of my pain for some time to see if it correlated with the weather, but obviously I wouldn’t be able to blind myself from what I was testing.
In any case, I’ll be damned if there ain’t something to this in my case.
I had severe back pain for ages, but I found a book, Pete Egoscue’s Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain, that gave me a new lease on life. I swear by it. In fact, I had flat feet until I did he “e-cises<” and now I have arches, and I don’t have a bad back. In fact, I haven’t been down for more than 3 hours since I started doing his e-cises. Before that I’d be out for a week. It’s one of the most important books I’ve ever read. And I have no material interest in anything related to Egoscue and his world wide clinics. Just got lucky to find the book.
Second, the second best cure all for any kind of pain is Emotional Freedom Technique, which uses tapping on some acupressure points that reconfigures energy blockages. It seems to work on all kinds of problems, from phobias to debilitating diseases. You can get Gary Craig’s manual from a download for free. The manuel explains how to do the tapping and where, but it also goes in to more detail about what the tapping is doing. You can get the manuel and watch the video at http://www.emofree.com/ Is he trying to sell you something. Yes, but it’s a soft sell. I bought his set, and he allows me to make 100 free legal copies. But you don’t have to buy the DVDs. The manuel works just fine. Just follow the directions the next time you’ve got “pain” and watch it vanish. No, it sometimes takes a few rounds, but often one round of tapping does it. How long does it take? Maybe a minute or two.
I have to add, one of my kids just recently was hit on his bike. He was in severe pain, and the nurses were slow to respond. So we tapped on him and for him, and he’d slide back into sleep. He had a broken shoulder, broken ribs, a puncture lung and a real broken collar bone, so he was hurting. Every time he taps the pain goes away.
