When one of my oldest friends asked me to be her maid of honor, I burst into tears. For one, I was surprised to be asked. We’ve been living in different cities since 2005, and I was beyond flattered to be the person she thought of for this role. I was touched. What I didn’t realize was that assuming this honor would leave me with nerve damage in my left thigh. For months.
Okay, yeah, let me back up.
So Christine asks me to be in her wedding, and I cry. Then she tells me about the maid-of-honor dress she has in mind, and I consider crying again. Why? Lemme put it this way: During her bachelorette party, Christine informed a drag queen about this particular frock and was promptly r-o-a-s-t-e-d.
“They’re long, dark hunter-green crepe gowns,” Christine proudly explained to the drag queen.
The queen gasped. “And you’re getting married in Florida? In JUNE? You shady, shady b*tch.”
The Wedding
June comes along and I go to the wedding and wear the dress—complete with full-body shapewear underneath, of course. Specifically, the kind of shapewear that goes all the way up to your underboob and down to your mid-thighs. Hey, it’s an unforgiving dress and I am the subject of many a professional photograph so I am left with few choices. In the aggressive, steamy 102-degree heat, I sweat like I’m in hot yoga. My body does its best not to expand, even though I got dressed at noon and wore the entire getup for 13 straight hours.
The wedding was beautiful, just as I knew it would be, but naturally, the second I got back to my hotel room, I peeled off my clothes and broke free, feeling nothing but empathy for Victorian women who had to wear corsets before the advent of the air conditioner.
The Realization
A few nights later, I’m back in my Brooklyn apartment when I notice what appears to be a little bug bite on my left thigh. I go to scratch it and the weirdest thing happens: I can’t feel what my fingers are doing. An entire section of my left thigh is completely numb.
Huh, I think to myself, growing a little nervous. Weird.
The Horror
Days later, the bite’s still numb. That’s when I start to get nervous and do a quick WebMD search. I learn I’m either pregnant, I’m riddled with a full-body cancer that will kill me within hours, or I have a common cold. None of these feel totally right to me so I do what anyone in my position would do—I text everyone I know who’s currently in medical school or has graduated from a medical-adjacent school in the last decade.
They all get back to me. Most of them ask the same questions—is the numbness tingly? No. Is it traveling? No. Do I feel warm or lightheaded? No. Am I having continence problems? Lol, no. Am I feeling sick? Nope. Do I often wear tight jeans or stockings? No.
Wait.
Yes, I tell them. I explain the whole debacle—the wedding and the shapewear and the tight dress and the heat.
The Problem
“Bikini brief syndrome!” Leah Blowes, my friend, offers. (She’s a medical student at New York Medical College, so she knows what she’s talking about.) “It sounds like you compressed part of your lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.”
She goes on to ask if the outside of my thigh, above the knee but not totally up to my hip, is where I’m numb. When I confirm, she tells me that yes, that’s the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.
Blowes explains that bikini brief syndrome—meralgia parasthetica, as it’s formally known—is a relatively common result of wearing “too-tight clothes” and that it usually takes a long time to go away.
“Weeks?” I ask nervously.
“Months,” she texts back.
My physical therapist David Gershkovich corroborates her theory. “We call it MP for short,” he tells me. He also tells me I’m lucky; MP often comes with tingling, burning, and pain. Considering my case is only noticeable to the touch should give me a small amount of comfort.
According to the latest Mayo Clinic research Gershkovich reads to me over the phone, there are 4.3 cases of MP for every 10,000 patients. And it’s actually more common in men than in women. Huh, well, the more you know?
The Solution
Today I learned...too much compression is definitely A Thing, and it seems like I had crossed the line on that fateful, sweaty June day in hot-as-heck Florida. Gershkovich, although he claims to understand the lure of compression clothing, warns that you run the risk of damaging nerves every single time you slip those wily pieces of spandex on—regardless of the brand or style you choose.
He recommends ditching shapewear and tight clothing altogether. But, sorry doc, I LOVE SHAPEWEAR and have worn it on a bunch of occasions, even after this happened to me!
If you can’t give up your shapewear habit but are kinda nervous about this whole MP thing, here are some tips:
- If you notice you’re uncomfortable in any tight clothing—aka you’re being pinched or there are lines and markings on your skin after you take something off—you’re probably compressing your skin too much. Take that sh*t off. And, to be clear, this is not just a shapewear problem. Tight jeans or pants and stockings can also cause nerve damage.
- Shapewear should be worn in moderation. Think of it like high heels. One or two wears will not kill you, but walking miles in stilettos every day would definitely increase your risk of developing issues with your poor feet. The same thinking applies here.
- If you know you’ll be in hot temps, where your body does have a tendency to expand, consider sizing up a couple sizes. The shapewear will still do what you want it to do, but you’re more likely to avoid my whole leg thing.
“It won’t happen to most people,” Gershkovich assures me. Then again, it did happen to me. So yeah, I get why this tale might freak you out.
How’s My Leg Doing Now, You Ask?
It’s been five months and my left thigh is still numb to the touch. But Gershkovich has assured me that this won’t last forever, and I should regain feeling in a few months or so. Until then, I keep looking at that maid-of-honor dress in my closet and shaking my head, laughing. Shady, shady b*tch, I hear the drag queen say. Shady, shady b*tch.
Still not ready to swear off shapewear? Here are some of Cosmo’s faves, but plz wear in moderation!
spanx High-Waisted Extended Length Short
spanx Open-Bust Mid-Thigh Bodysuit
