Aching knees, hips, hands, or shoulders may be good predictors of weather changes. This is not an old wives’ tale. One expert says you can trust the predictive power of your pain.

One of the nation’s leading joint specialists, Javad Parvizi, MD, PhD, of the Rothman Institute at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, says you should believe your grandmother, friend, or coworker—and even your own joints— when they tell you it’s going to rain.

Dr. Parvizi said that even though individuals can experience pain fluctuations with the slightest change in barometric pressure, most people report significant increase in pain before and during severe changes in weather, like summer downpours and thunderstorms.

“The phenomenon of people being able to forecast precipitation, especially rain, due to the level of their joint pain is real,” said Dr. Parvizi. “It is not in the patient’s head. There is science to back it up.”

Dr. Parvizi is director of clinical research at the Rothman Institute and associate professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Weather-related joint pain is typically seen in people with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other arthritic conditions. It can affect any load-bearing joint but is most common in hips, knees, elbows, shoulders, and hands. The joints contain sensory nerves called baroreceptors, which respond to changes in atmospheric pressure. These receptors especially react when barometric pressure is low, meaning the atmosphere has gone from dry to moist, like when it is going to rain.

“When pressure in the environment changes, we know that the amount of fluid in the joint or the pressure inside the joint fluctuates with it,” said Dr. Parvizi. “Individuals with arthritic joints feel these changes much more because they have less cartilage to provide cushioning.”

Dr. Parvizi said that sometimes the pain is due to inflammatory mediators around the joint, as with rheumatoid arthritis, and can often be helped by keeping the joints warm or icing them (depending on preference), massage therapy, and applying pain-relieving creams and ointments.

Other treatments may include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), site-specific steroid injections, and long-term use of supplements like omega-3, which is used to reduce inflammation, and glucosamine and chondroitin, which have been shown to significantly reduce arthritis pain and to maintain healthy cartilage when used in combination.

For patients who have suffered a long time and exhibit signs of end-stage arthritis (no cartilage left to cushion the joint), Dr. Parvizi suggests that joint replacement should be considered.

“Our goal is to get that painful little weatherman out of the patient’s joints while treating the root cause of his or her condition,” he said.