Squatting and skinny jeans don’t mix.
An Australian woman found that out the hard way while helping a relative move. She spent several hours squatting in skinny jeans, which sent the 35-year-old to the hospital for four days with muscle damage and nerve blockages to her legs, according to a recent paper published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
The fashion victim was walking home after the move when “she noticed bilateral foot drop and foot numbness, which caused her to trip and fall,” the journal paper explained. “She spent several hours lying on the ground before she was found.”
Doctors at the hospital had to cut the jeans off the patient’s legs because her calves had swollen, making the jeans impossible to remove otherwise. She was unable to move her ankles or toes and had lost feeling in her lower legs.
“She was diagnosed with compartment syndrome, which is a reduced blood supply to the leg muscles, which causes swelling in the nerves,” Newsweek said.
She was treated with intravenous fluids and walked out of the hospital (probably in loose-fitting pants) four days later.
The authors of the paper say this is one of many reports of injury from skinny jeans, with some people experiencing numbness, tingling and nerve pain in the thigh and groin area.
The hazards of skinny jeans are not, perhaps, as serious as those posed by other fashions of the past, as columnist Brian Moylan points out:
This woman recovered. But think about all the fashions that have done irreparable harm, such as bound feet, corsets and stretched earlobes. Possible damage from skinny jeans isn’t nearly as extreme and is reversible. It’s like getting your ear pierced and contracting an infection. You’ll be in a bit of pain for a few days, but it will likely get better.
Still, why would someone ever wear jeans that are so tight they cut off circulation to their legs? I have friends who rock the skinny jeans, but they aren’t so tight that their legs look like they’re about to bust out of casings.
Also, I wear sweats or other comfy clothes when I’m helping someone move, but maybe that’s just me.
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