By Jasmin Malik Chua / Source: Ecouterre

Skinny-jean lovers beware: Wearing too-tight trousers could make you fall head over heels—literally. A 35-year-old Australian woman was hospitalized for four days after numbness in her lower legs caused her to trip and fall, according to a case study published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. When she checked into the Royal Adelaide Hospital, doctors found significant damage to her muscle and nerves. Her calves were so swollen, in fact, that they had to cut off her jeans. Thomas Kimber, one of the physicians who treated the woman, blamed her denim’s constricting nature, which was made worse from hours of squatting while helping a family member move.

TIGHT SPOT

“We blame what happened on a combination of prolonged squatting for hours and the tight jeans she was wearing,” Kimber, an associate professor at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told CNN. “Normally muscles can expand to compensate for swelling, but there was a tourniquet effect, so the muscles had to expand inwards and compressed blood vessels and nerves.”

Although the woman has since fully recovered, Kimber said the extended loss of circulation could have led to dire results. “If she hadn’t been able to come to the hospital, the compression could have gone on longer and caused residual nerve damage,” he said, describing the case as presenting a “new neurological complication of wearing tight jeans.”

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