health and safety: Skinny jeans can wear your thigh nerves

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Skinny jeans can wear your thigh nerves

Parmeeta Ghoman always believed that skinny jeans are haute, sexy, fashionable, but what she didn't know was they are also a health hazard.
In December, when the 28-year-old San Francisco resident wore a pair of super-tight skinny jeans to dinner with friends, she noticed an odd tingly sensation running up and down her thighs. And when she got up to walk around, things got weirder. She felt like she was almost "floating", because she couldn't feel her legs.
    Experts say Ghoman's skin-tight denim caused a temporary bout of a nerve condition called meralgia paresthetica, also known as "tingling thigh syndrome". The condition can happen when constant pressure—in Ghoman's case, from the skintight denim—cuts off the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, causing a numb, tingling or burning sensation along the thigh.
    "The nerve, in some people, is susceptible to compression," says Dr John England, a New Orleans neurologist. The femoral cutaneous nerve, he explains, runs from the outside of the pelvis and through the thigh. "It is a pure sensory nerve—it doesn't go to muscles or provide strength. Anything that is tight around there could potentially compress the nerve that goes there."
    Pair those skinny jeans with a pair of high heels, and your risk for upsetting this particular nerve increases, as Ghoman discovered the hard way. AGENCIES