Abstract
Self-reported pain levels in patients with fibromyalgia may change according to weather conditions. Previous studies suggest that low barometric pressure (BMP) is significantly related to increased pain, but that the contribution of changes in BMP has limited clinical relevance. The present study examined whether BMP influenced variability in perceived stress, and if stress levels moderated or mediated the relationship between BMP and pain. Forty-eight patients with fibromyalgia enrolled in a randomized controlled trail (RCT) reported pain and emotional state three times daily with mobile phone messages for a 30-consecutive day period prior to the start of the treatment in the RCT. The patients were unaware that weather data were collected simultaneously with pain and emotional reports. The results showed that lower BMP and increased humidity were significantly associated with increased pain intensity and pain unpleasantness, but only BMP was associated with stress levels. Stress levels moderated the impact of lower BMP on pain intensity significantly, where higher stress was associated with higher pain. Significant individual differences were present shown by a sub-group of patients (n = 8) who reacted opposite compared to the majority of patients (n = 40) with increased pain reports to an increase in BMP. In sum, lower BMP was associated with increased pain and stress levels in the majority of the patients, and stress moderated the relationship between BMP and pain at the group-level. Significant individual differences in response to changes in BMP were present, and the relation between weather and pain may be of clinical relevance at the individual level.
Highlights
It is a commonly held belief that there is a relationship between weather conditions and pain
Pain intensity and pain unpleasantness were highly correlated (Pearson r = .91, p < .001), and the linear mixed models (LMM) showed comparable results (Table 3). Both barometric pressure and relative humidity had a significant impact on the individual slopes for pain reports, but with small parameter estimate values, B = -.003 and -.007 for BMP, and B = .003 for humidity, see Table 3
A decrease in barometric pressure was associated with increased pain, whereas an increase in relative humidity was associated with higher pain reports
Summary
It is a commonly held belief that there is a relationship between weather conditions and pain. Some studies report that there is a significant association between pain levels, temperature, barometric pressure (BMP) and/or relative air humidity in chronic pain conditions [2,3,4,5,6], whereas other studies failed to find such relationships [7, 8]. Several studies find that lower BMP is significantly related to augmented pain reports in patients with fibromyalgia [3, 5, 9], even if the effect sizes are small. In an exploratory manner, we tested both the possibility that stress could act as a moderator or a mediator for the relationship between BMP and pain levels in patients with fibromyalgia
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