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For more than two thousand years people have believed that joint pain could be triggered by bad weather, but the link has never been proven.
But now, by harnessing the power of thousands of volunteers, doctors hope to unravel the mystery. And the new technique could offer countless solutions to a whole host of ailments.
[...] Each day she enters information about how she feels into an app on her phone, the phone's GPS pinpoints her location, pulls the latest weather information from the internet, and fires a package of data to a team of researchers.
On its own Becky's data is of limited interest, but she isn't acting alone. More than 13,000 volunteers have signed up for the same study, sending vast quantities of information into a database - more than four million data points so far.
The app, called "Cloudy with a Chance of Pain" is part of a research project being run by Will Dixon. He is a consultant rheumatologist at Salford Royal Hospital and has spent years researching joint pain.
My rheumatism is triggered when the wife asks me to carry heavy, heavy things up to our 3rd-floor walk-up...
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Wednesday April 19 2017, @02:06PM (3 children)
I thought it had been determined long ago that a drop in barometric pressure was the culprit. Perhaps that was just a hypothesis, and they still don't know WHY a drop in barometric pressure triggers a response.
(Score: 1) by evil_aaronm on Wednesday April 19 2017, @04:41PM (1 child)
My wife suffers from this, so a while ago I looked it up and read that the drop in barometric pressure allows the tendons in the joints to swell to the point where it causes pain. Anti-inflammatories should help. In the name of science, I suggested that my wife soak in the tub to see if the water pressure helps counteract the lack of barometric pressure, but she's not as inquisitive as I am. Either that, or she likes to suffer and complain about it. Shrug.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 19 2017, @06:03PM
Increase in gas bubble formation in the joints?
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 19 2017, @05:29PM
they still don't know WHY a drop in barometric pressure triggers a response.
I'd assume the reason it affects joints primarily is because those are areas where a little change in pressure (or a little expansion or contraction with cold spells or whatever) are most likely to be noticeable. This is speculation, but it's the reason I'd always assumed people complained of joint pain with weather changes.