Humidity and PMR

I’m a Florida resident also. Spent the afternoon at the pool and got a sunburn. My PMR symptoms really flared the next day. Went away after 2-3 days of staying out of the sun. Lesson learned.

We are more sun sensitive on prednisone. Humidity can negatively affect PMR pain and any other inflammatory pain.

This is all very interesting.

My pre-PMR medical conditions came on while I was in the desert (about 5 years in hot parts of Iraq and Afghanistan). I'm fairly convinced they are all interconnected with PMR -- unexplained pain in elbows and hips, twitching of facial muscles, unexplained reflux, excessive sweating, exhaustion. I used to simply joke that the my time in those places broke my cooling system.

After retiring, I moved home to a mountain area of northern Idaho, All going pretty good until a very hot summer, spending a lot of time working outdoors. That resulted in my first official bout of PMR at 55 years old. Took a few years and some pretty poor doctoring to get through that one.

A couple years ago we moved to a hotter part of the state, where temps are regularly 90-100 degrees plus in summer. I was pushing my body pretty hard last summer, resulting in a fair amount of inflammation. And PMR knocked me down again in the fall.

Drives my wife crazy that I'm always seeking cooler climes, but I do believe there's a strong correlation between heat and PMR. A contributing driver, perhaps, that can overload other inflammation responses.

This led me to do a quick google whether hot climate impacts the body's ability to fight inflammation. Lots of references popped up that this is indeed the case for both short-term and chronic inflammation. I feel foolish that I have never thought to look this up before. I just took it as a given with my own body.

I already know I can't deal with heat and humidity combined. It intensifies the effect immensely for me. Absolutely miserable when working in DC.

Finally, if you look at how the body reacts to sunburns, it's exactly like an intense inflammation response. So throw that on top of your body trying to control PMR inflammation and your body can go into inflammation response overload.

Interesting to connect these dots. Thanks for this topic to make me think through it all as summer hits once again. Stay cool!

Yes I had a similar experience. I live in upstate NY, traveled to Denver in March where the weather was warm and dry—felt great. When I returned home to rainy and cold weather, the PMR pain increased. Rheumatologist said yes, weather can affect PMR but she did not want me to adjust my prednisone, as I was doing well with tapering otherwise. I use heating pad on my shoulders twice a day and that helps.

I think, not so much humidity as barometric pressure? I live in Kentucky ehere it is always humid, but I notice if the weather changes, my symptoms change with it….