Winter and Juvenile Arthritis

“It’s cold.”

Is the usual beginning to conversations during winter, but a side to Juvenile Arthritis that many don’t know is how this weather effects our condition.

There are many different types of research done into weather and Arthritis. You only need to jump online to see, but there’s not much there in relation to Juvenile Arthritis and the weather. So I decided to undertake my own research through Kids Arthritis to see if I was the only one being effected this way.

“How does the weather affect your Juvenile Arthritis, Sarah?”

Is a question I’m asked when speaking at community groups or conferences about Juvenile Arthritis. The answer can sometimes surprise people. The weather plays a huge part in my condition. Each year until my 13^th birthday I was admitted to hospital for surgery in September/October due to inflammation and pain in my joints that needed to be removed. The fact that it was the same time of year every year made me always wonder, 

“I’m sure I am not the only one.”

Turns out I’m not and through the research, I undertook through Kids Arthritis, I found that a high percentage of those I spoke with had the same issue.

The beginning of Winter is when the pain is most severe during Winter. Swelling appears and your reliance on medication to get through the day becomes more prominent. Once again, this isn’t just something that happens to me, it’s happening to a high percentage of children living with Juvenile Arthritis in Australia.

 If you ever meet a child or adult living with Juvenile Arthritis rather than asking them,

“How are you?”

Ask, “Do you have any pain today?”

This shows to us that you do care and want to know how we’re really feeling.

Why does my Arthritis hurt in different weather?

I have recently stumbled across my new favourite science channel SciShow. 

Now before we go any further I do enjoy watching the occasional fluffy bunny eating a carrot video like the one below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDT4bHBtK4g

But if I'm really going to spend time trolling through YouTube I would rather learn something, and that's how I stumbled across these guys. Their videos are not only informative but the questions are asked by real people from all over the world. 

One of their videos was of most interest to me as they were speaking about a problem I live with daily. The changing weather and my Arthritis. You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=86L4oRORREY

For years now I've known that the changing weather from hot to cold has played a part in why some days I can't move because of pain and others I'm free as a bird (sort of). I would have to be admitted to hospital during these cooler months for operations to remove Arthritis swelling and other procedures.

The video explains that our body genes can change expression or in other words turn on and off depending on the season. 

Researches in the UK and Germany studied over 16,000 peoples genomes, using blood and fat samples collected at different times throughout the year. Now if you didn't know there are different fats, proteins and other gooey stuff in our bodies that change throughout the year. This meant that 5,000 genes out of 23,000 genes were more active during cooler weather.

To put this all into practice they tried the study on Mice by using their ARNTL genomes, which suppresses inflammation. It turned out that during the winter months it was not suppressed, which meant that there was more active Arthritis during that time. 

If you want to know more about why your Arthritis may be different during different seasons please speak with your local doctor or Rheumy.

Needless to say I learnt a lot about my own disease in this video and it's great to know that someone out there is trying to find a cure for Arthritis.

Until next week,

Keep smiling as you never know whos day you'll brighten.