Warmer States | Arthritis Information

 

I have posted several times about my 15 year old recently diagnosed with
RA and has Type I diabetes. We reside in Maryland and the weather has
begun getting cold. We have noticed that she is already starting to get
flares which is making her sick. We have family in Florida and have
kicked the idea back and forth about a possible move there. Does anyone
notice a real difference in the warmer states than the northern ones. I
want to do everything possible to make her feel better and would
appreciate any comments or suggestions.

thanksI bet the warmer states are better.  I am considering this myself.  I want to move and I always feel better on those hot days!  Hope you can move south. i'd love to go with you:)

Donna
I grew up in PA (near Harrisburg) and had significant JRA-
related issues from age 10-16. I still had smaller flares
throughout the rest of high school. When I went to college in
South Carolina, I still had periodic flares. I felt better as far as
my asthma and fibromyalgia was concerned, but I don't feel like
it improved my JRA. Now I live in GA, and I am in the worst flare
since age 12. I definitely think that in the winter, I feel better
being down south b/c I am not as stiff going outside, but in the
summer the humidity makes me feel just as stiff and sore. I
believe that most people with RA see it act up when the
weather is changing, but level out once it has changed. I.e. I
feel horrible when it is about to rain, but once it is raining I feel
better. I hope this helps a little bit!!

P.S. Have you found a good rheumatologist for your daughter?yes she has a great one her in Maryland and I have already been searching
and found one that seems good in West Palm Beach. They also have a
endo there which is what she see's for her diabetes.I am worse when it is cold.  Can't even function.  I live in California and though we do have great weather, the winters here in the foothills are cold.  I have thought of moving somewhere tropical.  I think it would help.

We moved from the mid-west to AZ and my flares and deterioration calmed down a great deal.  My asthma also disappeared when we moved.  We had to move back to the mid-west (jobs were better back here) and everything has come back (including the asthma).

The cold, humid, damp weather affects me and I flare from it.  For some reason tho, I am worse when it rains than when it snows.  Weird.

I was born in Florida, my family moved to Connecticut when I was a toddler (to be dx with JRA) and I moved back to south Florida in my twenties. I visit with my brother's family back in CT occasionally.

Cold weather leaves me stiff and sore, so in that sense FL is better.

I see no difference in flares or actual disease activity.

The sudden severe thunderstorms, so common to south florida in the summertime, do seem to cause an achy - almost toothache like - pain in my joints. I've wondered if this is caused by the change in air pressure an approaching storm generates.

Tammy, I think the absolute most important thing to consider is what does your daughter want to do.  Being 15 and having RA is already unfair and hard to handle.  She has to be filled with anger and frustration that her life is not like everyone elses.  It can be very isolating and lonely.

So is she at a point where she wants to start fresh, in a new community, making new friends, or does she have a good solid group of friends she is attached to, and would have a hard time leaving? 

Do you have other children?  Their feelings are also another factor to be considered. 

I am sensitive to this because I had to move to a new state (from Ohio to Connecticut) when I was ready to enter high school, and it was very difficult.  I was very shy (hard to believe now) and I spent many days with my stomach tied in knots.  I got through it, because that's what you have to do, and I made new friends, but it was very hard.  Adapting to the ways of a different region of the country was challenging (midwesterners are very different than New Englanders).  I always felt "different" and somewhat of an outsider, which is the way RA probably already makes her feel. ( Fortunately in Florida there are probably many who have moved there from some other area of the country.)

A move could be just what your family needs, but you really need to consider all aspects, especially if the medical benefits may be limited.  As parents we have to feel like we can do SOMETHING - we search for ideas of what WE can do to help our children, when we feel helpless and at the mercy of the disease and the doctors and their treatments.  I'm so sorry you and your daughter are in this position, and hope that with the right treatment she will feel better and her flares will decrease. 

karen

I live in Ohio.  I went to visit my sister in FL for about a week in early August (when it was quite hot there).  I had no pain whatsoever and I felt great!  No symptoms of RA at all.

I also noticed that when we had our most extremely hot days this summer that I felt a lot better.  Now that the fall temps have set in I can feel a big differnce.  I have been having a dull pain everyday.

I really agree that the weather makes a differnce for us.

I live in Florida and have lived here since I was born. I was diagnosed with JRA at 11 and when I was 12 my family and I went to vacation in Connecticut. My joints were so stiff from the cold that I couldn't wait to get home.

I do get the aches and pains when it rains but not as half as bad than when I went on vacation. I prefer the warmer weather, it does me good. When it gets chilly here (no colderthan 40 degrees) my body stiffens up and I wear sweatpants to keep my joints warm- it works fine for me.

Make sure you talk to your daughter- my parents are soon moving to South Carloina and I'm staying down here for the warmth!

I feel any weather system coming in or going out the change in barometric pressure is the key thing. Florida has as much wild weather as Wisconsin. If weather changes are her trigger then Florida won't help much. New Mexico, and Arizona have wonderful boring weather 10 months of the year. 

I am better off in AZ than I was in WI, but the difference is not great enough that I would have up rooted my family for it.

I have also heard that people with RA like to live on the fault lines. Apparently they have much less pain. Where would that be?? Palm Springs CA I think or Palm Dessert. I am quite sure I can't afford to live there!

Winter in Northern California was killing me. I can't even imagine what I would have done if I'd been living in the colder, snowy climates I'd experienced before the RA. I definitely think the damp is most destructive, and cold weather in general is just plain painful.

Wherever you go for warm weather, be sure to check on the humidity as well. For me, high humidity is just as painful as damp cold. That's why I like Arizona so much - it's dry, for the most part.

The summers are hot, hot, hot and very dry. The rainy or "monsoon" season is the most humid it gets here. The monsoons are dramatic and beautiful, so those days of humidity are pretty much worth it. Besides, it's only one, short season, followed by the season my neighbors and I have labeled The Reason We All Moved Here.
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