Hi Andrew, Many persons in my family and social circle including myself are highly “weather sensitive” with all different kinds of expressions. Some become very tired when the weather changes the next day from cold to warm, other get edema when the weather changes from cool and dry to warm and humid, some get headaches with weather changes of any direction, some get phantom or scar pain. Many are feeling unwell the day before the weather change, some the same day (mostly the elderly), and very few the day after. It would be logical for me if the expression of the weather sensitivity would change according to the person’s current health status at that point in time, i.e. if someone had symptoms of dampness already and the weather would change from dry to damp that this would exacerbate their (already manifested) dampness issues. But I have observed that most people have the same weather sensitivity symptoms all life long, no matter how their health condition changed over the time. Could you please explain how TCM would see weather sensitivity and how you would approach it to not only alleviate the symptoms but in regard to the (possible?) root cause? Thank you very much, Annette

Andrew said: Hi Anette. Weather sensitivity, in general, is an expression of weakened resilience to disease in TCM. It occurs because an external pathogen, at some point in life, has invaded the system due to weak wei (defensive) qi. The treatment is to kick out the pathogen with exterior-releasing formulas then follow with formulas that tone the wei qi so it does not come back. Alternatively, what you are describing could relate to not having healthy daily-monthly-seasonal routines. Our lifestyle should change based upon cyclical factors. For example, eating watermelon (cooling) in the winter is not a good idea and takes us out of harmony with nature- this person may have cold-type pain manifest as a result. This is a major cause of chronic health imbalances! Some of the things you mentioned in your question could be due to similar poor lifestyle choices. Let's go deeper. Pains that increase with weather change have a wind invasion component. Most invasions are accompanied by one of the other EPFs: Cold, damp, heat, dry, summer heat. The textbook way to diagnose the pathogen is to recognize cold-type pain that is worse in the cold, damp/pain swellings that are worse in the rain, etc. These are relatively straight-forward. The complicating factor is the human in front of you! Every person's system responds to a pathogen in a different way depending upon other constitutional factors. Why does a person with a wind-cold invasion get a fever? The answer is that the system is fighting to have a response to the cold. If the person experiences fatigue as the main response, there may be a deficiency of some type and fighting the pathogen uses up energy reserves in an already depleted system. Always do a pattern diagnosis first, try to understand the constitution and health of the system overall. Then, try to identify the pathogen. If the pathogen is not easy to diagnose because of changing symptoms, go back in time. Ask the person when they first experienced the symptom and be a detective to understand what was going on at that point in life. I hope this helps! Andrew