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Joselita · 07-04-2007, 03:34 PM

Ada,
Hopefully, this won't wind up being another book here for you to read, but I am not going to make any promises that I (probably) can't keep! LOL

I know all about Humidity! I live in a swampy, murky, very damp, always wet (well..usually. We were pretty dry in all ways you can be dry up until just recently here. Now, the humidity levels have come WAY back up, but it isn't raining...and so we are humid AND in the midst of a drought! Explain that one...LOL) very green part of the country. With The Gulf less than 5 hours away from here, I don't reckon that anyone should be surprised to hear that! ROFL

Anyway...it is nothing for our humidity levels to be in the 90's or even 100%. We are lucky because our humidity is lower today...only reading 45% right now, which is changing our lower-then-it-has-been-being-temp from 89 to feeling like it is only 93. Not so bad...and not near as bad is it can and WILL get here during the Summer. ROFL, I will tell you something funny; when I was a kid and living in AZ, I thought that it was only 100% humidity when it was RAINING! I have since learned (and not long after first moving here to Alabama), that is very, very wrong. LOL

The sad thing is, that I live in a place that is bad for me. I have NEVER been able to adapt to the humidity and how it affects not only the temps outside (making it feel hotter in the Summer, and colder in the Winter), but how it affects my body. Since RSD came along...well....it has been pretty horrible. Funny thing, I didn't know just HOW BAD the humidity was affecting me until we went out to first Las Vegas during the Summer and then Tucson during another Summer. I knew before that that I did better in Las Vegas when we went during the Winter for our annual Christmas Visit, but I reckon that part of my just was figuring that it was because it wasn't SO cold.....(Although there have been a few times since that it has even been COLDER in Vegas then here during that time of the year)....and that the Damp plus the cold was making it hard on me here. ROFL..DUH! If DAMP and COLD bothers...I don't know why I didn't figure that Damp and HOT wouldn't?? Kinda stupid way of thinking when I look back on it now....

Anyways..it hit home for me when we made each one of those Summer visits. The heat was SUPER high (I am remembering a 117 temp reading while we were in Vegas....and a 115 in Tucson), but I felt ever so much better then I did here at home. Even down in Tucson, where it is slightly more Humid....and was more so because we were visiting around my Birthday which falls during their Monsoon Season...I felt GOOD!

Don't get me wrong...I still hurt. Shoot, I ALWAYS hurt. I just wasn't having...as bad pain? The same pain? Different pain levels, for sure.....but...I was even able to do things there that there would be NO way that I could do here. And, do these things even with the Thunderheads building up on the Horizon and blowing into town.

I see that you have been asking about the whole sweating thing. Humidity doesn't necessarily make you sweat MORE...but it does make your body not be able to use that sweat as efficently. If that makes sense? When it is dryer out, the sweat actually evaporates and helps to cool you down some, like it is supposed to do. When it is all humid (and, that usually means that the air isn't moving much....almost as if it is just too heavy to move around. LOL) you sweat, but it doesn't evaporate like it should. Or, like it does when the air is dryer outside (and even inside the house..I will get to that in just a minute). It just STICKS there, and then builds up until it is running off of you, and making everything stick to you...and making you pretty damn miserable. LOL..I know, because this is how life is for me here in The Land of Cotton. ROFL

When the air is dryer, you sweat the same amount (or maybe even more, if it is hotter), but it isn't hanging around and building up and running off of you CONSTANTLY like it does when it is all wet and humid out. So, it makes it seem that you are sweating MORE...when you really aren't. Does that make sense?

The same thing happens in the house. Here, I have to run the AC A LOT! I would rather deal with it being colder in the house then I would like (I prefer it warmer. LOL..Meghan would say "HOTTER!!" ROFL, but then she can't stand heat as well as Jay and I can), in order to make the air dryer inside. A regular AC (or heat pump...or whatever) helps to dry the air out at least a little bit. I imagine that you are pretty miserable if it is super humid (or even just a little more humid..if you are as sensitive to it as I am) outside..AND you have to use a Swamp Cooler to cool your house! Swamp Coolers are made for DRY places and to help add a little bit of humidity into the inside air (because a LITTLE bit of humidity isn't a bad thing....it helps to keep noses from drying out and cracking and bleeding [a problem that Meghan has when we go visit out West], and skin from drying out too badly and such, and throats from drying out)....ROFL..that is why Celine Dion is weird about the climate controls in her Coliseum thing that theyu built for her in Vegas at Cesar's Palace. She is worried about her throat drying out, and her getting what is known as "Vegas Throat", and messing up her signing (either from a case of Laryngitis, or her voice cracking all over the place). So, a little bit of humidity is a good thing. Too much is just crap. The swamp cooler that you have is probably only making you more miserable, since it is actually ADDING moisture into air that is pretty moist anyways.

Like you, I also sleep with fans going. Most houses here have ceiling fans in most rooms, to help circulate the heavy air, and to try to help dry it a little bit. So, I have ALL the ceiling fans running ALL of the time (yes..even in Winter...I just flip the switch to have the fans blow the heat down in the Winter, and then flip it back so that it sucks up the cool in the Summer). I also have a box fan that I turn on (on HIGH! LOL) every night when I go to bed. I didn't used to be able to sleep with such when I was younger (like, before we moved here), but I have been having to sleep with a fan (at least one, when I have lived in places that didn't have a ceiling fan in the bedroom) going at night for so long, that I can't hardly fall to sleep without one running. It is the air circulating and the noise that I need, I guess. But, also like you, I have to AT LEAST have a sheet to cover up my bad RSD parts (mainly my leg and lower back...it is easier to get and keep my arm out of the way, and it isn't as sensitive to the whole air circulating thing as my lower parts are....it never has been, but then, my upper RSD parts have always acted some what differently than my lower ones...not sure why), to keep the breezes from blowing on them and driving me crazy. I even keep throws out in the living room all year round for the same reason. I imagine that it is pretty funny for folks to come in here when it is 90 something outside, but feeling like it is way over 100 instead, and find me huddled up under a throw. Oh well...we do what we have to do to get by, you know?

You might see about getting a Dehumidifier if your humidity is supposed to be so high for much longer...and keep it in the room where you are. Especially in your bedroom at night, so that it can help to dry out the heavy damp air at least a little. Maybe that would help?

If I can think of anything else.....besides running fans of any and all types, and the dehumidier to try to help dry out the air inside your house..I will be sure to post it. In the mean time, I hope that you get dried out there and that things get back to a more normal climate for you SOON!

Oh! One more thing; they send folks away from places like here where it is so humid to dryer places (like AZ...LOL..can you guess where I am moving to in a year??

) to help with their Allergy problems. Not that there isn't any allergens in AZ or NV or any other dryer Western State, but because there isn't all of the humidity in the air to help hold the crap that is bothering the folk in, and cause their allergies to act up worse. Maybe the increased humidity levels are a big part of your worse problems with allergies lately? Something that you might ask your doc when you see him next, and maybe to see if he has any suggestions as to what you might be able to do?

(

Sorry that this wound up being long again...but I just can't seem to keep anything SHORT at all anymore. *Sigh.

Comes from talking too damn much, reckon? ROFLMAO!!)

Hope that you are having a VERY Happy Fourth!

Love and

Jose The Jabber Jaws! (Or...Jabber Fingers? ROFL!!!)