It was a dark and stormy night

Wow! That was some storm last night. While it did not produce the tornado or hail we have become accustom to it certainly did have some earth moving thunder. The entire upstairs seemed like it was on casters and sliding side to side with each clap of thunder. Amazingly the baby slept through the entire thing. It reminded me though of when we still had shadow, our Curly Coated Retriever. Nothing like a 100lb dog inviting himself into bed at the first sound of thunder.

So you are probably asking yourself how come people with certain types of arthritis can "predict" the rain? I too wondered that some time ago and decided to look it up. Here is what I found.


Does the weather really affect osteoarthritis?

Painful joints are often sensitive to the weather. They tend to feel worse when the atmospheric (barometric) pressure is falling, such as just before it rains. This helps to explain how people with osteoarthritis can predict rain, and why joint pains seem linked with the damp.

However, there is no evidence that different climates have any long-term effect on osteoarthritis or its outcome. The weather may temporarily affect symptoms but not the arthritis itself. There is no point in moving to a different area in the hope of curing osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis occurs all over the world, in all types of climate.



Well, know that explains that but what exactly is osteoarthritis? I thought only older people suffered from that?


Osteoarthritis is a disease which affects joints in the body. The surface of the joint is damaged and the surrounding bone grows thicker. 'Osteo' means bone and 'arthritis' means joint damage and swelling (inflammation). Other words used to describe osteoarthritis are 'osteoarthrosis', 'arthrosis' and 'degenerative joint disease'.

In my particular case it is the facet joints in portions of my spine that are suffering from this. Sometimes I feel good and do not notice the pain but those days are quite rare. Usually it is just there or rather I have grown use to it. I have done the pain management routine but for the amount of pain it causes and the lack of relief it provides I am not sure I am willing to go that route again.

Pain management for me consisted of a series of epidurals over several weeks. Did he just say epidurals? I thought they only gave that to women who were having babies! Yea, I thought the same thing too and boy howdy was I wrong. By the time my epidural journey was over I had received 10 of them! 3 pre-op at the L5/S1 level 6 post-op at the C-6 level (this one is fun! They go in through the front left side of the neck) and I had one during surgery.

Why did I have 6 post-op at the C-6? Seems during surgery they installed a blood/gas line in my left arm. In the process they nicked the left radial nerve and basically "crashed" it for me. Result was an arm that burned in agonizing pain. The shots were to "re-boot" the nerve so it would somewhat function again. It is working but at times it still burns.

Here is a good link to some information on what an epidural is.

Ironically the condition that I know have arachnoiditis, was possibly caused by shots that were intended to help the pain from the spondylolisthesis.