Open AccessTo tolerate weather and to tolerate pain: two sides of the same coin? The Tromsø Study 7
Author(s) -
Elisabeth Farbu,
Martin Rypdal,
Morten Skandfer,
Ólöf Anna Steingrímsdóttir,
Tormod Brenn,
Audun Stubhaug,
Christopher Sivert Nielsen,
Anje Christina Höper
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.524
H-Index - 258
eISSN - 1872-6623
pISSN - 0304-3959
DOI - 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002437
Subject(s) - cold pressor test , pain tolerance , confidence interval , medicine , population , cuff , threshold of pain , anesthesia , demography , blood pressure , surgery , heart rate , environmental health , sociology
It is a common belief that weather affects pain. Therefore, we hypothesized that weather can affect pain tolerance. This study used data from over 18,000 subjects aged 40 years or older from the general population, who participated in the Tromsø Study 7. They underwent a one-time assessment of cuff algometry pressure pain tolerance (PPT) and cold pain tolerance (CPT), tested with a cold pressor test. The results showed a clear seasonal variation in CPT. The rate of withdrawal in the cold pressor test was up to 75% higher in months in the warmer parts of the year compared with January 2016. There was no seasonal variation in PPT. The study not only found a nonrandom short-term variation in PPT but also indications of such a variation in CPT. The intrinsic timescale of this short-term variation in PPT was 5.1 days (95% % confidence interval 4.0-7.2), which is similar to the observed timescales of meteorological variables. Pressure pain tolerance and CPT correlated with meteorological variables, and these correlations changed over time. Finally, temperature and barometric pressure predicted future values of PPT. These findings suggest that weather has a causal and dynamic effect on pain tolerance, which supports the common belief that weather affects pain.