Advice on climate for pain.

[Duane Cole]

Hi, I am new to the forum. My wife is 36 and has fibromyalgia and myofascial pain syndrome. We currently live in south central Michigan. The weather fluctuates so much here it causes her to have a lot of pain and other typical flare up symptoms. In the summer she gets physically drained just doing nothing. The cold of the winter causes her pain in her muscles. She used to get a massage monthly, before Covid, now she has to endure my massages, and she gets trigger point injections in her neck, shoulder and back. She just graduated college and is starting a new career so we are looking to move to another state that might have better weather for her. We are hoping to get some insight from others on here as to states that have helped relieve some of their symptoms. We know that her symptoms will not go totally go away due to the weather, but we would like to find a place that gives her some relief from the Michigan weather. Ideal temperature would be mild, not too hot and not too cold. We have been thinking about western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, south eastern Kentucky and western Virginia. She would like to be close to the mountains, which brings up another question, has anybody that has moved from different elevations notice an increase or decrease in symptoms?

 

[sunkacola]

For many people, a warm and dry climate is best. The southwest has many places that are warm and dry and are close to mountains. Generally chilly or cold and wet or damp seems to exacerbate the pain for a lot of people. But of course, it varies a lot from one person to another. Would be good to spend time during different seasons in whatever place you are considering before moving.

 

[Flexecif]

I hear people feeling much better with temperate warm weather. I have read that Arizona would be one of the best places to live when you're dealing with fibromyalgia.

 

[Duane Cole]

Thank you sunkacola and Flexecif, we read similar advice online, but wanted to hear from people and not some website study. We think that the southwest will be too hot for her in the summer months, she does not do well in heat. Also, we don't like the lack of vegetation there, every house we looked at in that area seemed to have little grass and/or trees.

 

[sunkacola]

In the southwest it is all about elevation. If you live at low elevation it will be hot half the year. Go higher up and it will be very temperate. Huge difference between, for instance, Flagstaff and Phoenix. Also a lot of people just spend the winter in the southwest and go somewhere cooler in the summer.

 

[Duane Cole]

Yeah, we are looking at living at a higher elevation, but we also read that some people can get flare ups from changing elevation. We are not able to relocate during summer/winter, we have school aged children.

 

[Marvis]

Ugh ... I hear you. I live just north of the border in ontario. We hover around zero all winter - so pouring rain one day then snow the next and in summer humidex in the 30 + Celsius range and it’s absolutely killing me. I keep telling my family I want a climate controlled human-sized hamster ball and I’ll just roll around in it.