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06-24-2015 01:02 PM
A woman who was wearing "such tight jeans that the muscles in her legs below her knees started to swell" was brought to the hospital unable to walk. It took four days of bed rest and IV fluids in the hospital before the woman was finally able to walk again.
Jeans that feel vacuum-sealed can suck the life out of the body.
A woman in Australia was brought to the hospital unable to walk and with severe swelling in both lower legs, after squatting in skinny jeans for much of the day.
This is the first instance of skinny jeans causing damage to the lower leg, according to a case study written by her doctors in the Neurology Unit at the Department of Medicine, University of Adelaide, and published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
The doctors report that the 35-year-old woman was wearing tight-fitting skinny jeans while helping a friend pack and move for several hours. Later that evening, she tripped and fell because her feet were so numb she could not walk properly.
The woman said she was unable to stand up after falling because of the temporary paralysis and swelling. She lay in the same position for hours before she was brought to the hospital. Doctors at the Royal Adelaide Hospital had to cut off the skinny jeans in order to treat her legs.
"She wore such tight jeans that the muscles in her legs below her knees started to swell," Dr. Jaydeep Bhatt, clinical assistant professor of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center, told CBS News. "That's what muscles do when they don't get blood. They start to burst, which is incredible. In this case, she got injured because a jean is not going to give in. It contained her expansion, or swelling, and she got injured."
When the woman squatted for an extended time, it created extreme compression on her legs. Increasing, painful swelling of the muscles put pressure on the nerves and filled the spaces or "compartments" around the muscle -- a condition called compartment syndrome.
"In order for you to squat, your muscles have to be closer together, so more muscle in less space" explained Bhatt, who was not involved in the woman's treatment. "It's the perfect storm when you're wearing insanely tight jeans to make bad things happen."
"You're essentially creating a situation almost like having a tourniquet on your arm if you were bleeding," CBS News medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula told "CBS This Morning." "This was really the extreme of something that could happen."
Severe compartment syndrome can require emergency surgery to open the thick fascia, tissues around the compartments, and relieve the pressure. If the muscle fibers start to burst and leak into the bloodstream, they can damage the kidney. The most serious cases of acute compartment syndrome can require amputation.
For the woman in this study, it took four days of bed rest and IV fluids in the hospital before she was mobile again. Doctors say she was fortunate that she had emergency intervention before the condition damaged her kidneys.
Skinny jeans or other very tight pants have been known to cause too much compression and affect the muscles, nerves or organs. Both men and women have reported complaints from extreme discomfort to digestion or groin problems to leg constriction. More often, Narula said, problems arise when clothing constricts the hip and pelvis area.
"The red flag signs are: Numbness and tingling that is new -- you didn't feel it before but you feel it now -- and it persists, and especially if it's accompanied by weakness, that's not good," said Bhatt. "When the leg starts to swell, you've missed the boat. Because by then, you already have compromised the blood supply to an area of the leg."
It might seem fashionable to squeeze into those skinny jeans, but try walking around, bending and stretching in them first to make sure the blood is moving too
06-24-2015 03:18 PM
I saw that on the Today show the other day... and my only thought was: Just how skinny were those skinny jeans??? lol Mine are slim-fitting but I can still breathe, bend and crouch.
06-24-2015 03:20 PM
06-24-2015 05:30 PM
This is scary, plus they had to be very skinny!
Anyone remember back in the 70's when we use to lie on the bed to zip our jeans up because they were so tight, LOL! Those days are definitely gone for me!
06-25-2015 09:57 AM
Yikes! I don't know how some people stand their pants so tight. I like a slim leg pant and well fitted jean, but I do not want my pants to look like they were painted on my body.
06-25-2015 10:10 AM
There's skinny jeans and then there are those wearing skinny jeans which are simply too small. This is only my speculation, but I would bet the incidents reported in the news were the latter. Some people confuse the spandex content in 99% of the jeans on the market with being able to squeeze down sizes until it hurts. I have enough sensitivity to not want to see anyone injure themselves, but I really can't feel too sorry for the chuckles people are having at those women's expense. There's a punch line in an episode of The Honeymooners where Alice tells Ralph he looks like "two pounds of balogna in a one pound bag".
06-25-2015 06:22 PM
I've been wearing skinny jeans since....oh 2003. I don't wear fast fashion (3rd world jeans) I always wear American made top name premium jeans. I have never, never had any problem at all. I wear my true size, which is a 26. Never anything smaller. I'm lucky enough to have skinny hips and a small bum. That is my style of jeans. If there is any problem with them is large women trying to squeeze themselves in jeans too small for them. Same thing with leggings & jeggings. Common sense will tell you when you are wearing something too tight. It's too small for you.
Skinny jeans are an unforgiving fashion style. If you don't have the right body for them....skip them and try straight or boot cut.
06-25-2015 06:58 PM
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