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No, You’re Not Crazy: You Can Feel the Weather Change In Your Bones

Are you someone who can always sense when it is about to rain or if strong winds are heading to your town? If so, you’ve probably been met with some pretty skeptical looks from people when you warn them about the forecast coming from your bones. But according to a new study, your bones know what they are talking about it. 

In the study cleverly titled “Cloudy with a Chance of Pain,” 13,000 residents across the United Kingdom who suffer from chronic conditions like arthritis and fibromyalgia were asked to record their levels of pain in an app on a daily basis.  Of those participants, 2,658 were able to be analyzed based on their increase of pain over the course of a month. The app was able to pinpoint their location and the changes of weather in their area throughout the 15-month long study.

What they found was signs of more pain on days with higher humidity, lower pressure, and stronger winds — which pretty much backs up anyone’s claim that they can feel when a storm is coming based on their bad knee, elbow, or other bones. Now you can tell anyone who tries to roll their eyes at you that you’ve got science to back up your body’s inner meteorologist!

You might also be wondering if there’s any hope for silencing those aches and pains that come with weather changes. The study doesn’t shine much light on that, since with the variety of ailments that can cause the changing levels of pain it’s more difficult to pinpoint. However, just knowing there truly is a correlation can help you manage the pain and will hopefully lead to more treatment options.

Professor Will Dixon from the University of Manchester (where the study was based) explains in a press release, “The results of this study could be important for patients in the future for two reasons. Given we can forecast the weather, it may be possible to develop a pain forecast knowing the relationship between weather and pain. This would allow people who suffer from chronic pain to plan their activities, completing harder tasks on days predicted to have lower levels of pain.” The information can also help other scientists in pain management fields with creating more treatment options.

For now, you can have this study to back up any skeptical doctors (or family members) who think your weather-based pain is all in your head and find ways to ease your rainy day woes as best as possible. 

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