While she was buying presents for her friends last holiday season, junior Melanie Eisen suddenly felt piercing pain in her thumbs.

Eisen said she wanted to know what everyone wanted for the holidays, so she texted them, “I’m at the store, what do you want? I’m here now, I can only get the sale now.”

After multiple friends texted back, Eisen had to quickly respond to them. She said the back and forth texting is what started her pain.

“I had to stretch my thumbs, pull on them and bend them,” Eisen said.

Eisen has DeQuervain’s tendonitis, also known as iPhone Thumb. According to Eisen, her thumb pain strikes most often when there is a lot of commotion in her Pom Pon group chats.

“There is so much going back and forth [in the group chats] and you have to respond fast,” said Eisen. “[I feel] piercing pain, numbness and my thumbs feel exhausted and worn out.”

Dr. Taizoon Baxamusa, orthopaedic hand surgeon at Illinois Bone and Joint Institute, said he sees patients with this condition daily. According to Baxamusa, iPhone Thumb is caused by repetitive finger motions and awkward hand positions. The position of the wrist while texting predisposes the thumb and the border of the wrist to tendonitis. The constant thumb movements eventually build irritation in the thumbs.

Baxamusa said that long periods of texting is one of the main causes of this condition.

Eisen, who said she sends over 100 texts a day, agrees that small, quick thumb movements are the reason for her pain.

Baxamusa once treated a patient who developed iPhone Thumb after voting for her favorite American Idol contestant, Lee DeWyze, several hundred times by clicking repetitively on her phone.

“She eventually required a Cortisone injection to help her solve her problem,” Baxamusa said.

Baxamusa believes that prevention is the key, so he recommends that people pay attention to symptoms of discomfort and take frequent breaks. If fingers become really sore or painful, Baxamusa encourages people to ice their thumbs.

“Often times [taking breaks] is not the case with people that send thousands of text messages a day,” Baxamusa said.

Although Eisen does take breaks, she said iPhone Thumb is still an “annoying obstacle” in her life, due to today’s technologically driven society.