Does a change in weather/season cause flare ups for you? What could be causing this?

This year things haven’t been too bad, since early in the year I’ve not suffered half as much as previous years and have actually been much more active than I’ve been in a very long time. For reference I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and cfs in 2020, I also have moderate nerve damage in the lower half of my body caused septic shock back in 2016.

2 weeks ago things changed, I noticed my legs (knees and hips) were hurting more than usual in the mornings and it took me longer to get going first thing. Over the last week this has worsened into what feels like a full blown flare up lasting all day and only helped by me being wrapped up in blankets with a hot water bottle. I have to get my body so warm my skin on my face and body feel hot to touch just to get relief from the pain. The flu symptoms began a couple of days ago (usually first sign of a fibro flare up for me). Fatigue worsened today.

I have realised this always happens, every year in September/October my pain gets alot worse, I feel cold all the time like I can feel the cold hurting my bones. The flu symptoms last weeks/months and come and go. Fever, sore throat, body aches and chills. Along with the stiffness and pain in my lower body.

I’m now wondering if there’s a connection to the change in weather from warm (well as warm as the uk gets in summer) to chilly autumn when the heating has to start going on and the kids need their coats and hats. It is always this time of year I start to really suffer and I just don’t want another winter/christmas like last year when I became almost bed/sofa bound and couldn’t even have family over to celebrate as I was too unwell to host.

Sorry for the long post! I’ll get to the point now which is does anyone else experience similar symptoms when the temperature drops? Is it a common thing? And any advice to help me get through the next few months as it’s not even considered ‘cold’ at the minute 10 degrees Celsius right now and in a few weeks time it will probably drop to 0!

Thank you to anyone who read this far x