Arthritis and those summertime thunderstorms.....

I often say that people who suffer from arthritis would make the best meteorologists. Every week in my office, I will hear an arthritis patient say, "It's going to rain". Although the weather radar is clear, sure enough, a pop up thunderstorm comes a couple house later.

So, how do these patients know it's going to rain? Do they have some secret, high tech weather instrumentation that no one else has? The answer is, when the atmospheric pressure drops outside, arthritic joints cannot adjust to the sudden drop the same way that healthy joints can. The sensation is an achy, throbbing sensation. Regardless of where the arthritis is at, when it's about to rain, most people who have arthritis can definitely feel it. Depending on which joint you have the arthritis, there are treatments available to help. Knees seem to be the most common joint that people struggle with. The good news is, there are multiple treatment options available, other than a knee replacement. Now that summer is winding down and fall is setting in, I hope those rainy day aches are subsiding :)

Woodward Medical Center