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'Selfie Elbow' May Be Real Medical Condition

'Selfie Elbow' May Be Real Medical Condition

By Press Trust of India | Updated: 5 July 2016 17:24 IST

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Selfie addicts, beware! Constantly takings too many pictures of yourself may cause you to develop a "selfie elbow", doctors have warned.

Like tennis elbow or golfer's elbow, a dedication to selfie-taking is landing people in the doctor's office.

According to Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician at Hospital for Special Surgery in the US, the problem is overuse.

Like carpal tunnel and tendinitis, it is the repetitive nature of the task that causes the aches. If you do something enough times - typing, texting, or taking selfies - it is going to have consequences.

"Basically, the interface between technology and the human body sometimes causes injuries of over-exuberance," Metzl said.

"We used to see it with Blackberry phones - it was a real thing. People would get tendinitis in their thumb because they were on their Blackberries all the time," he said.

"You put too much stress on the muscle and it irritates the area where the muscle comes off the bone and you get this inflammatory response," said Metzl.

He advises switching arms for balancing the burden, or using painkillers.

There is a rising concern about the increase in tech injuries in teens, 'Elle.com' reported.

Gaming, using Snapchat, selfie-taking, texting and tweeting, teens are more prone to overuse injuries than ever before.

"In recent years we've been seeing an increase in carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis from overuse in teens, where 10 to 15 years ago it was mostly scraped knees and falling off a bike," said Charles Kim, a musculoskeletal rehab specialist at Rusk Rehabilitation at New York University Langone Medical Centre.

Kim suggests a selfie stick for the dedicated documenters - which works like an arm extender and takes the pressure off the elbow.

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