WhatsApp addicts, here is a piece of information for you; there is a woman who was hospitalized for excessive typing on the application.
This happened last year over Christmas holidays; the Lancet medical journal reported this case. A medical staff treated a 34-year-old emergency medicine physician, 27 weeks pregnant who sought treatment for severe pain in her wrists.
The patient had no history of trauma and had not engaged in any excessive physical activity in the previous days. However, on Christmas Day, she spent an estimated six hours holding a modestly weighty mobile phone while sending vast quantities of messages.
The diagnosis was bilateral extensor pollicis longus tendinitis of the thumb — or what they have nicknamed “WhatsAppitis”.
The treatment consisted of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and complete abstinence from using the phone to send messages — although she ignored that rule on New Years Eve.
A so-called Nintendinitis was first described in 1990, and since then several injuries associated with video games and new technologies have been reported. Initially reported in children, such cases are now seen in adults.
Tenosynovitis caused by texting with mobile phones could well be an emerging disease. The Lancet warned that physicians need to be mindful of these new disorders.
