Everyday Health Risks

Simple daily habits such as wearing a Fitbit, putting your wallet in your back pocket, and carrying a heavy purse can have dangerous impacts on your health.

Is your Fitbit causing arm pain or arm numbness and tingling?

Wearing a Fitbit could cause potential dangers to your health. There have been several complaints that come up in every day practice related to arm pain and wearing a Fitbit. Many patients have come to my office stating that they have diffuse arm pain, wrist pain, finger pain, or even shoulder pain. Many have complained about numbness and tingling into the arm. These patients were examined thoroughly and x-rays were taken. There were no positive orthopedic tests, and no radiologic findings. The one thing all of these patients had in common was they all wore a Fitbit. The pain/tingling corresponded to the wrist that the Fitbit was worn on 100% of the time. I started notifying my patients about my findings. Often times when I brought it up, patients that wore a Fitbit daily all reported arm pain from an unknown origin. So I advise you to rethink wearing a Fitbit. The constant contact of electronics has yet to be studied, but I believe the dangers are there.

Could sitting on your wallet be causing your hip pain?

Sitting on your wallet all day can be detrimental to your spinel health. As depicted, sitting on your wallet causes an asymmetry that distorts your spine, pelvis and hips. Habitually sitting on your wallet in your back pocket all day can irritate the sciatic nerve leading to pain and joint degeneration. The obvious and simple way to avoid this is to keep your wallet in your front pocket, put it in your jacket, or ditch it.

Is your purse too heavy? Could that be the reason for your shoulder pain?

Hauling around a heavy purse all day could be attributing to your neck, back, and shoulder pain. Carrying a heavy purse over your shoulder or in the bend of your arm causes an uneven shift on your body. Our body tries to compensate this by pulling muscles on the opposite side. Carrying a heavy bag can possibly result in pain within hours but often causes long-term damage. Try downsizing your purse to only the essentials or try a small backpack to distribute the weight evenly.

Can you think of any changes you can make to ease your back pain or have other positive health benefits? Even the smallest changes can have a big impact!