Cold Weather
I recently moved from a hot state to a cold state. There's bad weather (winter storm, winter weather advisory) here several times a month. I had no idea I'd have flares every time there's bad weather. Winter's almost half the year here!
Does anyone have any tips on how to prevent flares when cold weather comes in?
Oh, no! I am so sorry your new home is not working so well with your Lupus,
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I do hope your body adjusts a bit and that your flares may not be as severe and numerous next winter. I wanted to share this article on managing Lupus during the winter that I thought you might find helpful -- https://lupus.net/living/cold-weather. And this article is more geared towards avoinding illnesses in the winter, but I found some of the cold weather tips pretty applicable to your situation -- https://lupus.net/living/winter-healthy-tips. Again, I do really hope your body adjusts (although I know it will probably never like colder temps).
Hang in there! I live in an area with less snowy, but very dreary winters and I keep reminding myself that Sping is coming!
Best, Erin, Lupus.net Team Member.Thanks for the articles! The temperature does indeed cause my Raynaud's to act up. Keeping warm definitely helps with that. It also helps with everyday (non flare related) joint pain. Where I live, it's always cold this time of year, but I'm not having flares 24/7. Like one of the articles says, I can predict the weather. "Ah, there's a cold front coming in. I can feel it. I'm starting to feel flu-ish, my fingers and wrists are starting to hurt."
I decided to do some research. What makes cold fronts different than normal cold weather? The barometric pressure rises. Today it's 30.29, according to the National Weather Service, anything about 30.20 is high. Over the past couple days, it's been consistently rising...quite a bit. To convince myself I'm not crazy, I researched whether high and/or low barometric pressure is known to cause autoimmune flares. Bingo! It's been shown that people with autoimmune diseases can experience flares when barometric pressure changes quickly, like when a warm or cold front passes through. A warm front causes barometric pressure to drop, a cold front causes it to rise.
For asthma there's something called an "asthma action plan." It contains instructions for how to proactively prevent asthma attacks. For example, if you start getting the flu, you adjust your medication appropriately. I'm not sure if there's such a thing as a "lupus action plan."
Anyway, I think this would be an excellent article topic because no matter how warmly one dresses, it's not protective again sudden changes in barometric pressure., That's very interesting, thanks for sharing with us! Thanks to you I learned something new today 😀
Gabby (team member)
Worsten
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