Week-long Cell Phone Binge Leaves Chinese Woman Unable To Move Fingers, Rushed To Hospital

If you asked me, I’d probably admit that I cannot live without my cell phone. I’m on it constantly, checking messages, scrolling through social media, watching stuff and calling people. And it’s probably the case with most young people today. Basically, our hands are constantly clasped around our smartphones. But as our elders have been telling us for a while now, that might not be such a smart idea.

A woman from Changsha, China, spent an entire week glued to her cell phone, and ditching work.

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Sounds like the dream, doesn’t it? Just you and your cell phone and nothing else in between? The woman had taken a week’s holiday from work. And instead of getting some much needed R&R, she clasped that smartphone tight and did not let go, except of course when she went to sleep at night.

We’ve all heard that excess of anything is bad. And pretty soon, the woman felt tremendous pain in her right hand and was unable to bend her fingers at all!

Shangaiist reports that the fingers of her right hand were stuck in the cell phone holding position!

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Increasing concern about her situation drove her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a condition called ‘tenosynovitis’. What’s that, you ask?

Tenosynovitis is the inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath (called the synovium) that surrounds a tendon, typically leading to joint pain, swelling, and stiffness.

It can be caused by immense strain from overuse or repetitive usage of a particular joint, in the woman’s case, her fingers that clasped her cell phone and repeatedly typed and scrolled on it.

Cell phone addicts reading this and feeling completely spooked right now might be happy to know that the woman received treatment and the movement in her fingers returned to normal.

However, the doctor who treated her warns that the condition might get way worse for some people than others, depending on their usage.
While smart phones are surely some pretty useful lifelines in today’s times, and carry our whole world in them, it is imperative that we set them down once in a while and give ourselves some much needed rest. Not just for the hands that hold them, but also for the eyes that are exposed to the harmful light of their screens, the ears that are plugged constantly with headphones blasting loud sounds, and even our sleep schedules that get massively disturbed because of prolonged use late in the night.
Let this be a reminder that when dealing with anything, anything at all, moderation is key.

 

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