Don't let your skinnies be the death of you.
An Australian woman found out the hard way that skinny jeans are the silent boa constrictors in your closet.
While helping a family member move, the woman apparently spent several hours squatting to empty lower kitchen cupboards.
The 35 year-old's legs started tingling, then she progressively lost sensation in her feet. By evening, she tried to walk home through a park, and fell. She couldn't stand and had to crawl to track down help.
"When she arrived, her calves were massively swollen - so much so that they had to cut her jeans from her body. They weren't able to remove them any other way," said neurologist Dr. Thomas Kimber, who treated the woman at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Known as compartment syndrome, the combination of tight jeans and hours spent squatting effectively cut off the blood supply, causing the woman's calves to swell. The nerves in her lower legs then compressed, resulting in a loss of feeling.
The cut-off blood supply triggered a release of proteins called rhabdomyolysis in her body. Wait; it gets worse. These proteins can actually cause kidney damage.
Though the woman was lucky not to suffer from kidney damage, she had to be on an IV drip. And due to nerve damage, she couldn't walk and remained hospitalized for four days. Four days! All because of her skinny jeans.
Although squatting for too long can cause such nerve damage called "strawberry pickers' neuropathy," the jeans definitely exacerbated the situation.
"There was no capacity for the jeans to stretch, so there was nowhere for the muscles to go but inward. The jeans couldn't accommodate the swelling," said Dr. Kimber.
Moral of the story: if you love your skinny jeans, by all means go on rocking them.
But if you have any actual physical work to do that involves more than standing around looking awesome, you may want to opt for leggings instead.
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