To repair the 29-year-old man's damaged tendon and address his chronic thumb pain, surgeons had to operate on him

Apr 15, 2015 06:53 GMT  ·  By

A report published in the American Medical Association's journal JAMA Internal Medicine earlier this week details the case of a young man who needed surgery to fix a torn tendon in his left thumb after having played Candy Crush Saga for weeks on end. 

According to the medical experts who handled this case, it was his passion for the puzzle video game that left the 29-year-old with a torn tendon. Apparently, he kept poking at his smartphone screen until his (ahem, ahem) extensor pollicis longus tendon ruptured.

The man felt no pain while still playing

As detailed in the JAMA Internal Medicine report concerning this case, the 29-year-old patient broke his tendon after having played Candy Crash Saga on his smartphone all day for about 6 to 8 weeks.

He would use his left hand to play the puzzle video game and his right to tend to other tasks. Mind you, the man was not addicted to the game or anything of the sorts. He was in between jobs and the game helped him make the time pass.

Despite the fact that he tore his tendon at its thickest, an experience that doctors say should have caused him tremendous pain, it took a while for the 29-year-old to figure out that something was wrong.

Medical experts suspect that this happened because, while he kept playing, the young man was so excited and had so many feel-good chemicals rushing through his body that the injury to his left thumb failed to register.

“The potential for video games to reduce pain perception raises clinical and social considerations about excessive use, abuse, and addiction,” the man's doctors write in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Future research should consider whether pain reduction is a reason some individuals play video games excessively, manifest addiction, or sustain injuries associated with video gaming,” they add.

The man did feel excruciating pain eventually

Having taken a break from his Candy Crash Saga marathon, the man started experiencing chronic pain in his left thumb. Besides, he found that he had trouble moving this one finger.

To diagnose him, doctors performed magnetic resonance imaging on his left hand. Once they knew what the problem was, they operated on him and repaired his damaged tendon. Soon enough, the man regained full functionality of his thumb.