What's New at CHAC

CHAC Is Two Years Old!
Hard to believe we will be celebrating our second anniversary already! To celebrate, we are offering FREE acupuncture to both new and returning patients on Saturday, July 17th, from 9 am to 5 pm. Since opening in Ferndale in July 2008, CHAC has provided over 3,500 treatments! Southeast Michigan has shown us they are open to trying acupuncture and have supported the clinic over the past two years. The Free Acupuncture Day is our way of saying thank you to our supporters and clients as well as a way for us to show support for our community. New patients, please make an appointment by calling 248.246.7289. Existing patients may call or book online.

First Free Fridays Continue
CHAC offers free treatments to new patients on the first Friday of each month. The next free Fridays are July 2, August 6, and September 3, 2010. If you know someone who could benefit from acupuncture, please let them know. Make appointments by calling the clinic, or sign up for an appointment online here.

Ferndale TimeBank Meets
at CHAC This Summer
CHAC has been hosting meetings of the Ferndale TimeBank the third Wednesday of the month and will continue until September 2010. If you'd like to find out more about the Ferndale TimeBank or Timebanking in general, feel free to attend one of our meetings, July 21st or August 18th at CHAC, 801 Livernois St., 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm.

Health Points E-Newsletter

Empower yourself to achieve good health by subscribing to CHAC's e-newsletter.

Community Health Acupuncture Center's E-Newsletter

Posted: June 21, 2010. Updated June 28, 2010; July 15, 2010               Share

Pain and Weather

    Fir0002/Flagstaffotos. Used with permission
    from GNU Free Documentation Licence

Many people have aches and pains or other chronic health conditions that seem to get worse with changes in weather, and all too frequently, doctors discount their patients' observations as unimportant. They say their patients think their conditions change with the weather because they happened to notice bad weather when they are feeling more intense symptoms. Or, hypocritically, they say say that bad weather depresses people, which may make pain more noticeable, acknowledging weather effects on psycho-emotional status and simultaneously dismissing weather effects on other health measures. Traditional medicines, and increasingly some enlightened allopathic doctors, are more likely to acknowledge that our environment has significant influence on our health and well being.

A sizable body of research is beginning to accumulate that supports the idea that people's bodies react to changes in their environment, including the weather. A considerable portion of the research is about arthritis and rheumatic and inflammatory diseases, but there are many more conditions that change with weather. Here is a small sample:

1. People with rheumatic arthritis and fibromyalgia feel worse with lower barometric pressure.¹
2. Joint pain in people with osteoarthritis gets worse with lower barometric pressure.²
3. More strokes occur when there is a decrease in barometric pressure.³
4. Low barometric pressure is associated with the rupture of fetal membranes and delivery.⁴
5. Malaise, inactivity, depression, and psychological discomfort are more frequently reported by people on cold rainy days and correlate with changes in serotonin, thyroxine, steroid, and amine metabolism.⁵
6. Studies of physiology and pathophysiology at high altitude also support the idea that lower atmospheric pressures and hypoxic environments correlate to increases in swelling — an inflammatory response — in the forms of acute mountain sickness, pulmonary edema and cerebral edema.⁶

How does this work in Joint Pain?
The exact mechanism is not well understood. Some experts believe arthritic joints become more inflamed when barometric pressure drops because tissues stretch and cause an increase in joint fluid. The inflamed joint will swell, stretching the inflamed joint lining and capsule causing pain. Pat Thomas, author of Under the Weather,⁷ writes:

"…our atmosphere exerts a subtle but continual pushing and pulling effect on our bodies. When pressure or humidity is high, the atmosphere acts like an invisible, elastic body stocking. It pushes against us and holds us in. When atmospheric pressure decreases and/or humidity increases, it's like having this support garment taken away."

The connective tissue and cartilage that makes up joint linings and capsules are already stretched in painful, inflamed joints because of increased joint fluid. If you lower the barometric pressure, the inflamed joint will swell, stretching the inflamed joint lining and capsule even more, thus increasing pain. Thomas continues:

"Because tendons, muscles and bones are of differing densities, cold or humid air may cause them to expand or contract in different ways. If there is already swelling, stiffness, inflammation or abnormal mechanics in the joint, as the pressure changes, the unequal expansion and contraction of these tissues may add to these injuries and be experienced as increased pain."

Mechanisms for Other Symptoms
When the weather gets stormy, some people may notice an increase in digestive or breathing problems, coughing, or nausea and vomiting, fatigue, poor sleep, memory lapses, or difficulty hearing or seeing. These can be explained by changes in barometric pressure brought about by the weather and are very similar to the symptoms of acute mountain sickness, high altitude pulmonary edema (swelling) and high altitude cerebral edema.⁶

High altitude mountain sickness is an illness of mountain climbers and typically occurs within hours of ascent to altitudes greater than 2,500 meters. Symptoms include headache that is worse at night, loss of appetite, nausea, sometimes vomiting, and disturbed sleep and fatigue. Sometimes there is shortness of breath, cough and neurologic symptoms such as memory deficits and hearing or visual disturbances.

High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) develops 6 to 96 hours after exposure to high altitude ambient barometric pressure. Early signs include decreased exercise tolerance, increased recovery time after exercise, shortness of breath on exertion, and persistent dry cough. Symptoms get worse when the condition progresses to shortness of breath at rest, audible congestion in the lungs, and cyanosis (a blue color) in the nail beds and lips. Several factors are at play in this disorder, but one cause is thought to be increased permeability of the tiny vessels that surround the microscopic air sacs in the lungs. At lower air pressure, this tissue stretches and allows fluids to "leak" out into the air sacs of the lungs causing swelling of the lungs and accumulation of fluid.

High altitude cerebral edema (HACE) happens when insufficient oxygen reaches the brain; the body compensates by increasing blood flow to the brain, which increases intracranial pressure and may cause edema. Symptoms include severe irritability, insomnia, ataxia, hallucinations, paralysis, seizures, and sometimes coma.

People can have milder symptoms similar to those of pulmonary or cerebral edema with milder changes in barometric pressure without having full blown HAPE or HACE. These well documented conditions are simply exaggerated versions of feeling "under the weather" when barometric pressure drops at lower altitudes.

Lower Pressure Means Enlarged Air and Fluid Cavities
Another consideration Thomas mentions is that barometric pressure drops lead to an expansion of air inside isolated body cavities and in the fluids in membranes. Research confirms that the flu-like symptoms experienced after diving, and ear discomfort during or after flying are due to changes in air pressure that affect the properties of liquids and gases within the body. Transient disequilibrium in body pressure compared with ambient air pressure that is brought about by air travel or diving may also sensitize nerve endings so that there is more pain with subsequent additional changes in weather.

Also keep in mind that there is a lower concentration of oxygen per volume of air inspired in low pressure climates (ie, higher altitudes); therefore, each breath in a low pressure environment delivers significantly less oxygen than in a "normal' or higher pressure climate. Hypoxia is known to cause headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, and nausea. In severe cases, there can be changes in consciousness, seizures, coma, and priapism. Hypoxia is also thought to cause an inflammatory response, although the exact mechanism is not yet known.

How Chinese Medicine Accounts for Weather in Illness
The ancient Chinese doctors didn't have much to say about atmospheric pressure, but they were able to identify variations in health conditions that correspond to weather changes in dampness, cold and heat.

A damp condition in the Chinese medical tradition is remarkably similar to the changes described with low barometric pressure. Damp diseases are characterized by some combination of the following: a feeling of heaviness or pressure in the chest, stomach or abdomen, limbs, or head; no appetite, nausea, vomiting; sticky taste in the mouth; urinary difficulty; discharges from any orifice; a feeling of tiredness or fatigue.

If there is heat with the dampness, there may be fever, a red tongue, a yellow tongue coating, or a rapid pulse. With joint pain and arthritis, the skin feels hot and may be red and swollen and worse with contact. Inflammatory type arthritis conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, lupus, gout, and some types of fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis often fall into this category. Damp heat is one of the most difficult conditions to resolve.

If the dampness is accompanied by cold, joint pain may be localized and doesn't move, or it may affect one side or one half of the body, and may feel better with the application of heat. Other signs of cold include a pale tongue, maybe a white tongue coat, and a slow pulse rate.

What Weather-Related Symptoms Mean for Treatments
Armed with observational information about how your condition changes with barometric pressure and precipitation as well as with heat or cold means you are in a better position to self-treat. For example, if you know you symptoms are worse with dampness, you can take steps to dehumidify your home; if your symptoms are worse with cold, you can apply heat to help relieve discomfort; and if your symptoms are worse with heat, you can do things like add cooling foods and herbs to your diet or do things that will help you to relax and be less active (which tends to generate heat).

Acupuncture and Chinese medicine are uniquely well-suited to treat illnesses characterized by symptoms that vary with environmental and climatic conditions because these considerations are part of a Chinese medical "diagnosis". Your acupuncture or herbal treatment will include acupuncture points and/or herbs that are specific to your particular pattern of illness as it relates to your reaction to damp, heat, or cold.

As for pressure related changes, if your symptoms are worse with low pressure, you might also consider trying a session in a hyperbaric or compression chamber. There are at least three of these in the metro Detroit area.

In the News

Happiness Is Political Activism!
Activism can bring happiness, according to a series of studies by Tim Kasser and Malte Klar. The three studies described in the current May issue of Yes! Magazine surveyed college students and adults about their levels of commitment to political activism and frequency of activist behaviors (such as sending emails, attending meetings, etc) as well as their mental-emotional well being. Study participants who were more politically active scored higher on assessments of personal well-being, such as having more pleasant emotions, greater life satisfaction, and increased feelings of freedom, competence, and connection to others. The studies hint at potential health benefits as well. One of the studies showed that students who had just participated in a short-term political action felt significantly more alert, energized, and alive than those who participated in a similar, but more hedonistic act.

Acupuncture Thought to Release Natural Painkillers
High levels of the neurotransmitter adenosine were released in mice that had tiny needles inserted and stimulated for 30 minutes, according to a study led by Maiken Nedergaard at the University of Rochester published in the May 30th issue of Nature Neuroscience. Adenosine is an endogenous neurotransmitter that inhibits nerve cell response to injury and acts like a local anesthetic called lidocaine. The mice's pain levels from inflamed paws, measured as the time it took them to withdraw a sore paw from touch or heat, were found to be lowered as well. This how-does-it-work study means that in mice at least, acupuncture activates the release of adenosine, and may be one of the mechanisms at play in human acupuncture, as well.

References