This Woman Almost Died From Wearing Skinny Jeans

Take heed, ladies.

By Nicole Weaver — Written on Oct 03, 2020

Photo: atdigit / Shutterstock

This Woman Almost Died From Wearing Skinny Jeans

So many of us love a good pair of skinny jeans.

These jeans are great at showing off our legs, our excellent shoe game, and our positive qualities. But some of us have taken our love for these jeans to dangerous lengths.

In 2015, a 35-year-old Australian woman lost all feeling in her legs.

The situation started the day after she was squatting while helping a relative move out of their house, while wearing skinny jeans. She squatted for hours upon hours emptying cupboards. She recalled that her "jeans had felt increasingly tight and uncomfortable."

The unnamed woman was walking home through the park after, when she started having trouble lifting her feet. She tripped and fell to the ground. Her feet went numb and she collapsed, unable to move.

It took her hours to drag herself to a more public area and flag down a taxi to take her to the hospital. Once at the hospital, her legs were numb and she had lost all feeling in her lower legs and feet.

After being taken to Royal Adelaide Hospital with swollen legs, doctors cut off her jeans. She was diagnosed with "compartment syndrome."

The jeans were so tight that they prevented her legs from expanding when she squatted, which forced her muscles to compress downwards and crush her nerves.

Normally, when someone wears loose-fitting clothing or shorts, stressed calf muscles will swell outwards without damaging the nerves when someone squats. The muscles and nerves in her lower legs were so damaged that she needed four days to fully use her legs again and to make sure her kidneys didn't have lasting damage.

The good news is that she was okay, and it's very unlikely more people will suffer from this because of skinny jeans.

"I have not heard of this being an issue with skinny jeans, but it is an issue with tight bandages and plaster casts," vice president of the Australian Orthopedic Association, Andreas Loefle, said. "There's just not enough blood supply to the muscles and some muscles actually die, which is why it's such a serious issue."

Thomas Kimber, who treated the patient, added, "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 damae but fortunately she was treated in time."

In fact, skinny jeans have caused other problems. They can lead to the condition called meralgia paresthetica, which is a numbing and burning along the thigh. So, skinny jeans are not as safe or functional as regular, loose fitting jeans are.