It feels like a sports injury, but you don"t even need to leave the house to get it. Wiiitis, pronounced "wee-eye-tis", is the latest ailment to develop from the video game era, beginning with Space Invaders" wrist in 1981. In 1990, a Wisconsin doctor characterized the thumb soreness brought on by pushing the buttons on a controller as "Nintendinitis".
"The variant in this patient can be labeled more specifically as "Wiiitis. The treatment consisted of ibuprofen for one week, as well as complete abstinence from playing Wii video games. The patient recovered fully," Dr. Julio Bonis, a family practice physician, wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. Nintendo"s Wii game can captivate for hours and "unlike in the real sport, physical strength and endurance are not limiting factors," wrote Bonis of the Research Group in Biomedical Informatics in Barcelona, Spain.
"What convinced me to send the case report was that a friend of mine, after playing "Wii Sports" suffered from a similar complaint. I have not found other cases in my clinical practice, but it is probably an underdiagnosed condition," said Bonis.