Skinny jeans are fine as long as you don't squat in them.
Doctors are warning potential "fashion victims" about the dangers of skinny jeans after a one woman was hospitalized for muscle and nerve damage from squatting in a "too tight pair of pants," ABC News reported.
The 35-year-old woman was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with severe weakness in both ankles and swelling in her lower legs. She had to be cut out of her skinny jeans.
"When she arrived, she had massive, really severe, swelling of both calves to the extent we were unable to take her jeans off without cutting them," study author Thomas Kimber told news.com.au. "She couldn't move her ankles or toes properly and had lost feeling in her lower legs and feet."
The previous day she recalled helping a relative move, and spending hours squatting in tight skinny jeans "that had felt increasingly tight and uncomfortable as the day wore on," study authors said in an article published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
The woman, who had to be hospitalized for four days, experienced numbness in her feet and found it difficult to walk later that evening, which caused her to trip and fall. Unable to get up, she spent several hours lying on the ground before she was found.
Further investigation revealed that the woman had damaged muscle and nerve fibers in her lower legs as a result prolonged compression while squatting, which her tight jeans had made worse, the doctors suggest.
Researchers said her tight jeans reduced blood supply to her leg muscles, causing swelling and compression of adjacent nerves.
"Without medical treatment she may have ended up with permanent nerve damage affecting her ability to walk, and the muscle damage could have led to kidney damage but fortunately she was treated in time," Kimber said.
After being put on an intravenous drip for a few days, she was able to walk unaided again.
The case is detailed in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
