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#ARTHRITIS WEATHER CALCULATOR SKIN#
#ARTHRITIS WEATHER CALCULATOR FULL#

“Natural sunlight can help skin psoriasis, but doesn’t seem to help joint symptoms,” says Professor WalkerBone. Some people find their psoriasis gets better when they’re out in the sun, but more research is needed to see if sunlight helps psoriatic arthritis.

They can check your vitamin D levels, ideally in the winter months when they are likely to be lower.” “But if you’re worried about your vitamin D levels and joint pain, it’s important to get advice from your GP or rheumatology team. “There are guidelines on vitamin D supplementation for everyone in the UK,” says Professor Walker-Bone. There are no set guidelines on how much time is needed in the sun, but those with lighter skins may need just 10 minutes of sunlight every day in the UK, while those with darker skin may need around 25 minutes. You get most of your vitamin D from direct sunlight when your skin is exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays.Īccording to Cancer Research UK, the length of time you need in the sun to make enough vitamin D depends on skin type, time of day or year, and where you are in the world. Vitamin D is essential for healthy bones, teeth and muscles, as well as your immune system.

Research in Belfast in 2015, looking at 133 patients, found people with rheumatoid arthritis had fewer joint symptoms (tenderness and swelling), and lower levels of inflammation, in sunny and less humid conditions. Your response may also depend on the type of arthritis you have.Īccording to Professor Karen Walker-Bone, professor of occupational rheumatology at the University of Southampton, people with osteoarthritis generally prefer warm and dry weather, while those with rheumatoid arthritis tend to prefer the cooler weather.Ī small Norwegian study in 2019 of 48 people with fibromyalgia found that lower barometric pressure was associated with increased pain, with higher emotional stress levels making the pain even worse. Scientists know muscles, bones and tendons get bigger and smaller in response to atmospheric changes, but exactly how and why barometric pressure changes affect the joints is unclear this could be related to the pressure of the fluid oiling your joints or increased nerve sensitivity.

Read our top tips on managing your pain.

Temperature sensitivity is a common symptom of fibromyalgia, and extremes in temperature, whether it be hot or cold, can trigger flare-ups. “One theory is that people are less active in cold, damp weather – and keeping active is known to help relieve arthritis pain.Īn alternative theory is that changes in barometric pressure affect the pain you feel. “It is unknown why weather affects arthritis pain,” he says. Some notice their pain and stiffness flares up in the cold and wet winter months, while others find hot and humid summer weather can make symptoms worse.ĭr Alastair Dickson, GP and health economist with an interest in rheumatology and arthritis, and trustee of the Primary Care Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Medicine Society, says that some people are more sensitive to the weather than others. People with arthritis often say that they can predict the weather based on how their joints feel. “Knowing how the weather impacts on our pain can enable us to accept that the pain is out of our control, it is not something we have done, or could have done differently in our own self-management.”ĭixon also hopes that pain researchers find this new information useful as they pursue a deeper understanding of its causes and mechanisms.We’ve been lucky to enjoy some warm days recently and while most of us love a bit of sunshine, the warmer weather can affect some people with arthritis. She finds comfort in the study’s conclusions. This is made even worse, Gamble says, by a tendency to blame oneself for flare-ups. Even when we’ve followed the best pain management advice, we often still experience daily pain.” “So many people live with chronic pain,” she says, “affecting their work, family life, and their mental health.

#ARTHRITIS WEATHER CALCULATOR FULL#

This leaves self-management as the only practical method for “helping them to get and stay in work, to be full members of the community, and simply to belong.”Ĭarolyn Gamble, one of the study’s participants, is living with ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis, and she expressed happiness about the new insights. But our healthcare system is simply not geared up to effectively help people with arthritis with their number-one concern.” with arthritis, over half experience life-altering pain every day. Says Stephen Simpson, Ph.D., of the advocacy organization Versus Arthritis: “We know that, of the 10 million people in the U.K. Dixon suggests that the study’s findings could lead to meteorologists giving pain forecasts alongside air quality projections, which could help people with chronic pain “plan their activities, completing harder tasks on days predicted to have lower levels of pain.”