KEY POINTS:
A dental student has what is believed to be New Zealand's first reported case of texting tenosynovitis, otherwise known as text-messager's thumb.
The modern-day malady - where the tendons that run along the thumb and side of the wrist become inflamed and the surrounding tissue filled with fluid
- comes from incessant texting on mobile phones.
Only two cases have previously been reported - one school-aged child in Singapore and another in Australia, where a 13-year-old girl's symptoms were relieved following advice to use both thumbs to send texts.
Fleur de Vere Beavis, a right-handed Otago University student, whose case has just been published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, was told the same thing.
The 20-year-old sends between 20 and 100 texts a day, each using about 150 characters.
Her problem started several months ago when she noticed the fleshy pad under the thumb of her right hand was always sore.
She had to take a daily diet of anti-inflammatories to ease the pain.
She mentioned it to her doctor, who diagnosed the syndrome. The symptoms are similar to de Quervain's tenosynovitis, a painful and often disabling condition mainly seen in workers who perform repetitive manual tasks, wrestlers and bowlers.
The doctor's advice included rest and relaxation, talk more and text less.
But with mobiles now the main form of social networking among young people, Fleur wasn't going to contemplate life without a phone.
She said: "One of my friends has just come back from overseas and not got a phone yet, and it's like how do I get hold of her?"
She has started texting with her left thumb.
"If you've ever tried brushing your teeth with your left hand... it's a bit like that.
"You're using a different part of your brain but you do get used to it."
Initially she thought the injury might have been made worse by her dental work.
"I do a lot of small repetitive movements and a lot of tight gripping."
But that theory has since been debunked because she's developed similar, but milder, symptoms in her left hand.
"My flatmates reckon there's going to be a generation of crippled people because we all text so much."
Fleur didn't know how she felt about being New Zealand's first case of texting tenosynovitis.
But she replied, by text: "Everyone I know texts as much, if not more, than I do. Maybe it's an evolutionary thing? Super thumbs?"
The authors of the journal report, husband and wife team Emma Storr and Mark Stringer, said tenosynovitis was likely to be more common than thought, given texting's popularity.
Similar afflictions, although in different areas of the hand and arm, have been noted in gamers and people whose work involves the use of a computer mouse.
About 4.5 million mobile phones are in use in New Zealand, with more than 28 million text messages sent through the Telecom and Vodafone networks each day.
The figure peaks at 36 million on Christmas Day and at New Year.
