Weather App Provides Personalized Pain Forecast

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Like many people who live with arthritis, Dave Richtor noticed that cold and wet weather made his joints ache more than usual.

“I’ve always just been stiffer and slower on grey days,” says Richtor, who lives in the seaside city of Brighton, south of London. “I’m in bed for ten hours a day. When I’m waking up and stiff, there’s obviously been in the night a temperature change.

“My grandma used to know when a storm was coming 20 minutes before it happened. She’d say, ‘Oh, a storm is coming. I’m getting a headache.’”

Feeling “under the weather” is more than just family folklore. Richtor was intrigued by a recent University of Manchester study called Cloudy With a Chance of Pain, which analyzed data from over 10,000 UK residents who recorded their daily pain levels on a smartphone app. The GPS location of their phones was then compared to local weather conditions.

The study found a modest association between weather and pain, with people more likely to feel muscle aches and joint pain on days with low barometric pressure – and the wet and windy weather that usually comes with it.

The study not only gave credibility to a link between weather and pain, it gave Richtor an idea. Why not create an app that gives users a personalized pain forecast? Many apps track the weather and some keep track of pain levels, but there were no apps that married the two.  

“I’ve done extensive research into it, and can’t see those two things matching up,” Richtor told PNN. “Most people I know in this field have been like, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this before?’”

That’s the inspiration behind Weather Flare, a free health app designed to help people with chronic pain anticipate changes in the weather and their pain levels. Users create a personal profile of their conditions, medications and symptoms, which are then compared to weather conditions provided by AccuWeather. The app “learns” from user input and develops a customized forecast to help people prepare for changes in their symptoms. 

Richtor is currently holding a Crowdfunding campaign to raise money for further upgrades to the Weather Flare app.

Weather Flare is not just for pain sufferers. Richtor says people with asthma, allergies and other health conditions can benefit from knowing about weather conditions such as air quality and pollen counts.

He’s also working with a professor at the University of Sussex to develop a database to warn of drug interactions caused by the weather. For example, people with psoriasis who take methotrexate can be sensitive to prolonged sunlight.

“We’re incredibly excited to have the University of Sussex onboard to assist us with further developments for our app, making Weather Flare even more supportive for sufferers,” says Richtor. “The positive thing about me just having this crazy idea in my head, is that I can help other people manage their own conditions. If it just makes 1% of difference to someone’s day, then I’ve achieved what I set out to do.” 

The app is still in beta stage – meaning the developers are still working out some technical issues. When I downloaded the app, it was unable to recognize my location despite repeated attempts.

Weather Flare is not just for people in the UK. Because AccuWeather provides forecasts and weather conditions around the world, it can be used anywhere. To download the app, click here.

UK Study Finds Weather Can Worsen Chronic Pain

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Do you feel “under the weather” when its rainy and cold outside? About 75% of chronic pain sufferers believe certain weather conditions can aggravate their pain. Some even think they can predict a storm coming because they “can feel it in their bones.”

A new analysis of weather patterns in the United Kingdom suggests there may be some truth to those old clichés.

For 15 months, researchers at the University Manchester collected data from over 10,500 UK residents, who recorded their daily pain levels on a smartphone app. The GPS location of their phones was then compared to local weather conditions.

The study found a modest association between weather and pain, with people more likely to feel pain on days with low barometric pressure – and the wet and windy weather that usually comes with it.

The key appears to be the upper level jet stream – a narrow band of air currents that circle the globe several miles above the earth. On days when the jet stream was aimed right at the UK, with above normal wind, humidity and precipitation, about 23% of people reported more pain.

But when the jet stream blew north of the UK, and pressure was above normal with less humidity and precipitation, only 10% of people reported higher pain levels.

“Although the weather may not be the primary cause of people’s pain, our results through multiple independent methodologies demonstrate that weather does modulate pain in at least some individuals,” lead author David Schultz reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

“The results of this project should give comfort and support to those who have claimed that the weather affects their pain, but have been dismissed by their friends, their coworkers, and even their doctors.“

The new analysis builds on earlier research from the Cloudy With a Chance of Pain study, which is the largest in both duration and number of participants to examine the link between weather and pain.  Previous studies have found little or no association between the two.

A 2014 Australian study, for example, found that acute low back pain was not associated with variations in temperature, humidity and rain.  And a 2013 Dutch study concluded that weather had no impact on fibromyalgia symptoms in women.

“Part of the reason for this lack of consensus is that previous researchers have treated the different measures of the weather such as pressure, temperature, humidity separately, which assumes that one could vary the temperature while holding all of the other weather measures fixed. Of course, the real atmosphere does not behave like this, as all the variables are changing simultaneously,” says Schultz.

Schultz and his colleagues plan to further study the data to see how environmental conditions modulate pain, insight that could be used to develop better treatments and individualized pain forecasts.

Study Finds Link Between Weather and Chronic Pain

By Pat Anson, Editor

There may be something to the old adage about “feeling under the weather.”

Early results from a smartphone-based weather study in the UK show that rain and lack of sunshine have an impact on how we perceive pain.

Over 9,000 people are participating in The University of Manchester’s Cloudy with a Chance of Pain project,  using a special app to record their daily pain levels.  

The app also captures hourly weather conditions using the phone’s GPS, giving researchers the ability to compare the pain data with real-time local weather.

Researchers reviewed data from participants in three cities – Leeds, Norwich and London – and found that as the number of sunny days increased from February to April, the amount of time participants spent in severe pain decreased.

Conversely, when the weather turned rainy and cloudy in June, the amount of time spent in severe pain increased.

The 18-month study is only half complete and researchers are still looking to recruit as many people as possible who are willing to track their symptoms.

“If you are affected by chronic pain, this is your chance to take do something personally – and easily – to lead to a breakthrough in our understanding of pain,” said lead investigator Will Dixon, a professor of Digital Epidemiology at The University of Manchester’s School of Biological Sciences.

The Greek philosopher Hippocrates in 400 B.C was one of the first to note that changes in the weather can affect pain levels. Although a large body of folklore has reinforced the belief that there is a link between weather and pain, the science behind it is mixed.

A 2014 study in Australia found that low back pain is not associated with temperature, humidity and rain.  A 2013 Dutch study also concluded that weather has no impact on fibromyalgia symptoms in women.

“Once the link is proven, people will have the confidence to plan their activities in accordance with the weather. In addition, understanding how weather influences pain will allow medical researchers to explore new pain interventions and treatments,” says Dixon.

People with arthritis or chronic pain who are interested in joining the Cloudy with a Chance of Pain project – and who have access to a smartphone – can download the app by clicking here. You need to be at least 17 and live in the UK.

Participants are encouraged to record their pain symptoms daily until the project ends in January.  Researchers hope to use data to develop “pain forecasts” based on weather predictions.