Friday, May 20, 2022

Forecasting the weather - and arthritis pain

 

As regular readers will know, I'm permanently partially disabled due to an on-the-job injury almost two decades ago, and my wife has had some fairly serious injuries in the past.  I'm permanently in some degree of pain, and she gets hit by it if she over-exerts herself, or if the weather (heat, humidity, pressure, etc.) affects her particularly badly.

The other night we both woke up, in pain, shortly before 2 a.m.  I got up and fetched pain-killers for both of us, which helped:  but neither of us could understand why we were both being affected at that time.  There was no thunderstorm going on (something that usually makes both of us go "Ouch!" simultaneously), and there seemed no other obvious reason.

Looking around the Internet the following morning, my eye happened upon a sidebar heading "Local Arthritis Forecast" at Accuweather.  You won't see it on their main page;  you have to enter your location (we use our Zip code) to get your local forecast, whereupon it pops up.  For example, here's the location-specific weather forecast for Hermitage, TN, zip code 37076.  Read down the sidebar to find the arthritis link.

I followed the link for our area and found a very useful bar graph, with more information below it.  Here's what the next week's arthritis forecast looks like for our area (clickit to biggit):



The morning we woke up in pain, the arthritis forecast for that day was "Very High".  We both confirmed that from personal experience!

The arthritis forecast appears to indicate accurately when any sort of bone issue, including past injury and/or surgery sites, will be affected by that set of weather conditions.  If you fall into that category, you might want to bookmark the Accuweather page for your Zip code, and check the arthritis forecast regularly.  It may help you plan your activities better - and your need for pain-killers!  Kudos to Accuweather for providing it.

Peter


13 comments:

James said...

I understand. I have been in some degree of pain from a back injury for almost 60 years. It is just background noise anymore. I do get irritated with the pain declarations that they always want during doctor visits, I have no idea where I fall on there little scale. It always hurts to some extent, but i have led an active life by not paying anymore attention to the pain than I absolutely had to.

Joe said...

One day...our 'scientists' will understand Nitrogen gas and it's effects with different materials...such as stainless steel implants...

TheAxe said...

Thanks Peter! As a fellow sufferer i'll add this to my resources.

Carteach said...

Looks VERY useful. Found and bookmarked our local Busted Up Old Guy weather report.

Old NFO said...

Oh yeah, sigh...

Tom Bridgeland said...

Another useful page is www.pollen.com.
You get a pollen level by zip code. They also offer a weather chart and covid/cold/flu chart on a click-through page.

Carteach said...

Tom, more good info. Thanks.

Eaton Rapids Joe said...

Thank-you sir.

Jim said...

Bookmarked it. My shoulder's been bothering me of late and this site shows that.

FeralFerret said...

Thank you for the info. Looks like a couple of bad days coming up here.

Unknown said...

Thanks Peter, This will be a great help.

MR Tumnus.

E. C. said...

How useful! Over the last few years I've become the amazing weather-girl, mostly accurately predicting when storms would come through simply by how much my fingers ache that morning. I suspect I have early-onset arthritis, which is no fun for this 20-something. Looking forward, I foresee a long life lived in some degree of pain. I feel as old as my aging parents, and some days (especially when it's stormy) older.
Still, I try not to let the pain rule my life. No point in letting misery win!

roamer said...

Arthritis and Sinus pressure are the main reasons why I've stuck it out in Seattle so far despite the politics. The latest round of idiocy has me searching for alternatives, though.