Can your joints predict the weather?
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So, Norman, we've spoken at length before about your knee.
Oh, God, we're going to have another program about my knee, are we?
Well, it's not about your knee, but I wanted to ask you, does it flare up under different circumstances? Do you feel like you have more pain in it in different settings?
Well, if I haven't done exercise.
If you haven't done exercise.
I haven't been to the gym. Okay.
It gets worse. And I'm assuming if you do too much exercise, it also hurts.
Well, it's got to be quite a lot, actually.
Yeah.
What about like external factors? Do you find, like I've heard people before say the weather affects their joints. Is that something that you can identify with?
Well, I can identify having trained in medicine in Scotland where people would come in. because it was always bleak and cold, particularly in Glasgow and then in Aberdeen, very cold. And people would say, oh, it's my joints, doctor, can you do something about it? And you always wondered. But I don't find that.
All right.
Maybe that's why I'm living in Australia rather than Aberdeen.
Maybe it is, maybe it is. And it is actually the exact topic of today's What's That Rash?
What common beliefs exist about joints and weather prediction?
The podcast where we answer the health questions that just everybody's asking.
Yes, today's questions come from Edwina and from Harry, who are both basically asking whether your joints can predict the weather. Edwina says, does the weather really affect joints and joint pain? I've heard older relatives often speak about a change in the weather or a change in the weather coming and therefore my wrist slash hip slash fingers are the major joint is painful. Edwina says, now that I'm older, I have pain in joints in which previously had a fracture and with seemingly unexplained cause. What do you reckon? Is it a change in the weather? Similarly, Harry says, my question is about feeling a change in the weather in your joints. When it is about to rain, my wife has ankle pain where she had some metal work done six years ago.
And my mum also feels it where she had a break decades ago. Her GP says he feels it in his elbow. Is there a scientific basis to this? And if so, is there any truth in the tale that warm, dry climates are better for joints than cold, damp climates?
Yeah, well, Harry, let's hope there's no rust in the metalwork in your wife's ankle. Oh, don't say that.
Now it's in my head.
Just joking, Harry.
Does that happen?
No. Okay. Stainless steel.
Good, good, good.
Okay. Surgical steel.
Good, good. Now I've got that out of the way.
I couldn't resist it.
So, okay, this idea that our joints can predict the weather feels really ancient. Well, in the olden days when you lived in Scotland, Norman, you said lots of people would talk about it.
Yeah, those were the pre-antibiotic days in the 19th century. That's all you had was the weather. Well, I think Hippocrates wrote about it, didn't he?
Okay, so actually finding the primary source for these sorts of things has been hard. It is mentioned by Hippocrates. There's also some writings attributed to Herodotus. When you look at what they were actually talking about, they were talking about seasonality of weather. the body and this idea that perhaps change was bad for our health generally, not specifically talking about joint pain. Herodotus said that the Libyans and Egyptians were the most healthy people in the world.
Southern Mediterranean, even in those days.
There you go, Mediterranean diet, probably. But this idea that a stable climate was good for your health. So I guess that's a pretty broad application.
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