If you were to by chance catch me running around town in flip-flops and my pajama bottoms in the middle of the day, you’ll probably think one of three things:

1. “Oh My God, look at the lazy slob!”

2. “Wow, I sure wish I could ditch these heels and slacks for her outfit!”

3. “Hey, look she’s wearing the same PJ bottoms as me; we must both shop at Target!”

What you’ll never think to yourself is, “Good for her for taking precautions to save her LIFE.”

Well, you may think that AFTER you read what I have to say here. A while ago, I came across this article, “Skinny Jeans Are Bad For Your Health.” Without even reading the article, I answered, “Yes, of course they are.” Skinny jeans have caused me much grief since the birth of my son. They taunt me. They tease me. And they sit collecting dust in my closet daring me to get back on Weight Watchers.

But as it turns out, mental health problems were not what this article was referring to. It meant physical health issues. I was intrigued. According to the article, skinny jeans can cause a very uncomfortable condition known as, meralgia paresthetica. It begins when tight-fitting jeans compresses a nerve in groin area close to the surface of the skin. Once enough pressure is put on the area the whole nerve reacts, running from your groin, to your outer thigh and down to your knee.

As it turns out, that is not the ugly horrific sounding disorder that can be caused by skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are in news headlines again because a 35-year-old was recently hospitalized for FOUR days while being treated for  rhabdomyolysis and bilateral peroneal and tibial neuropathies.

While walking home after helping a friend move all day, where she did a lot of bending and squatting in her skinny jeans, the woman lost feeling in her feet, tripped and fell and spent hours on the ground waiting for for help. Once she was finally discovered and rushed to the hospital, doctors had to cut the jeans off her legs due to the swelling.

“We blame what happened on a combination of prolonged squatting for hours and the tight jeans she was wearing,” said Dr. Thomas Kimber who treated the patient. “Normally muscles can expand to compensate for swelling, but there was a tourniquet effect, so the muscles had to expand inwards and compressed blood vessels and nerves,” said Kimber.

I’ll just let you digest that little story about skinny jeans and not even bother to warn you about about the joys of bacterial infections that come from thongs, the countless pains and injuries that UGGs and stilettos cause your back or the dangers of heavy handbags. Death by fashion–it might actually be a thing.

So to the skinny jeans stashed away in my closet waiting for the day I fit back into them, I have this to say – “Suck it, death pants.”