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Modern Woman Health Woes, Solved

Your attachment to your cell phone and high heels is hurting your health. Here's what you can do to fix it
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Your Diagnosis: Repetitive Strain Injury
The Symptoms: You find yourself constantly trying (and failing) to shake the pain, tingling, or numbness out of your wrists, and you notice that sharp, shooting pain is inching closer and closer to your elbow by the day. Looked up "carpal tunnel" a fair number of times on WebMD? You're probably one of the many suffering from repetitive strain injury, or RSI.

The Culprits: "RSI is one of the most common problems we see in the hand clinic," says occupational therapist Leslie Diamond, OTR, CHT, director of hand therapy at Shift PT in New York. That's because any motion you repeat over for an extended period of time without proper rest breaks (typing on your laptop, texting and responding to emails on your phone), can cause inflammation and pain. "When you combine repetition with awkward positioning, the probability of tendonitis and other overuse injury rises exponentially," Diamond says. Unfortunately for our fingers and wrists, all of our repetitive actions, from swiping screens to gripping a computer mouse all day, qualify as awkward positioning.

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Your Rx: Switch It Up
Diamond advises her patients to rest their hands as much as possible. Using headphones to make hands-free calls hands and depending more on Siri is a good place to start. If you're mostly using a mouse all day, she recommends having two different types of mouse devices, so you can switch back an forth without sacrificing productivity.

But if pain, numbness, or tingling is still present after a few days of rest and stretching, head to your doctor. "Over the counter anti-inflammatories, splints, heat, and ice are all great ways to help alleviate the pain, but the underlying cause must be addressed."

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Your Diagnosis: iPosture
The Symptoms: Chronic back pain and that "I slept on the wrong side" feeling in your neck.

The Culprits: Sadly, iPosture isn't a new app you can download to help you sit up straight; it's the hunched over, slouching position caused by regular smartphone, tablet, and laptop use. While your head is down and you're glued to the screen, your middle slouches, putting pressure on your lower back and its nerve roots, which leads to pain and, in some cases, numbness.

According to chiropractor Dr. Artemio Del Real of Serenity Health & Wellness in Chicago, the prolonged forward head posture that occurs with computer users and iPad users is often the cause of chronic head and neck pain as well. "One of the biggest misconceptions about neck pain is that people think they've slept wrong, but most pain is just a symptom of poor, tech-related posture."

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Your Rx: Get Engaged
Our bodies were made to move, so get active. Schedule reminders to get up, stretch, and walk around once every hour. Once you sit back down at your desk, check your alignment. Be sure your rear is pressed against the back of your chair, and engage your core muscles to keep from slouching forward or unnaturally tilting your pelvis back. Keep feet flat on the floor and your thighs parallel to the floor so your legs create a 90-degree angle.

To get yourself on the right track, try adding back support like the BackJoy Posture+, a portable seat that cups your glutes and tilts your pelvis upright, to help you zero in on what proper posture feels like.

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Your Diagnosis: Phone Face
The Symptoms: Your face has developed a stubborn problem area. Regardless of what you do, it's prone to breakouts, blotchiness, or discoloration that has no intention of leaving anytime soon.

The Culprits: We hate to tell you this, but your cell phone has more germs than a toilet seat. That disturbing fact sheds some light on why certain areas of the face, i.e. from the temple to the chin, seem to sprout blemishes on the regular. This area, referred to Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, cosmetic dermatologist and founder of 5th Avenue Dermatology Surgery and Laser Center in New York, as the "phone zone," gets hit face first by the bacterial breeding ground that is your phone screen.

That's not the only damage your phone can do to your face. Today's smartphones are basically tiny computers, and they get hot. According to Frank, the heat radiated from your cell during a long phone call can have the same damaging effects that the sun has on skin.

BY ERICA SMITH | NOV 18, 2013 | SHARES
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