Apple Watch causing wrist pain

mjmphillips wrote:

This is kind of big concern!

Yes, you should see your doctor as soon as possible.

Heart rate monitor. Go to privacy and turn it off

If you are concerned about health implications, then do as has been indicated several times in this and other threads about wrist pain, see a physician.

A family member is a doctor. 26 years strong. Has no idea what could be causing it. I'm very athletic and workout 6 days/week. Never have had a wrist injury or problem. I tried wearing the watch on the other wrist with the same results. I also had to unpair/pair the watch due to a text notification issue and I kept the watch on my wrist while this was going on. The feeling increased and felt like it was burning while it was unpairing/pairing. A doctor is not going to have a solution unless they understand how the watch was built and works. I've owned at least 30 watches up to this point of my life and have never had an issue. Tons of people are complaining about the exact same thing and until I experienced it, I never knew such a complaint existed. There is definitely some relation between the watch and the pain.

I have a series 1 and have had it for little over a year. I wear it all the time, sometimes in the shower. Lately noticed a stiffness in wrist and I can pop my wrist if I move it in a circular fashion.

When I take the watch off at night, I am fine. Then about afternoon, my wrist starts killing me. I take the watch off and it my wrist is okay. Been hurting for a few weeks and just made the correlation (thought is was old age).

So I am going to do a little test and turn off the haptics and see what happens.

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, I bought the Apple Watch 3 42mm on Friday Jan. 19, 2018. I wore it for one day and then a very strange pain appeared in my hand and fingers as if I had punched a wall with my wrist. I wondered directly if the watch was the cause. The next day I tried to wear the watch on the other wrist, and by the end of the day the same pain had started.

I obviously searched online before changing wrist on how to wear the watch correctly and made sure that I tried every possibilities to wear the watch in a way that does not hurt me. However, it did not help, and I realised that many people had the same issue.

On my side, I think the problem is the curvature of the back of the watch which creates a single point of contact with the skin/wrist. This point is a high pressure point as it is the tangent of this curve and of very small area. In my opinion, it is a flawed design. There is no good reason for pushing a "needle" in someone skin... a watch should not have singular pressure point...

The problem is that the Apple shop I bought the watch from in Luxembourg City does not want take the watch back and reimburse me, with even no way to negotiate anything. I find it very appalling.

Would anyone of you have a contact detail of someone at Apple who could do something about it?

In a nutshell, I discourage anyone who intend to buy the Apple Watch to buy it. In order to convince yourself, just check the back of this watch and you will notice this pressure point which cannot do any good (compare to a normal watch). Do not forget that you wear your watch all day long and sometimes you would even wear it during the night. This design is not ergonomic and cannot fit our body.

Sandra Andina1 wrote:

Wish they made slimmer straps--or even the old "Twist-O-Flex" style.

There are lots of non-Apple bands available. Also, kits to convert bands so they work with the Apple Watch. It might be worth poking around on Amazon.

I have a whole wardrobe of non-Apple bands--in fact, the one that's the apparent culprit is an aftermarket leather one. The aftermarket silicone ones I have (pale and bright pink, navy, red) are identical in construction (materials, dimensions) to the white Apple one that came with my watch; the rose-gold-plate aftermarket mesh one is a bit thicker and wider than the stainless Apple one I originally got for dresswear. None of the aftermarket bands on Amazon are any slimmer than Apple's OEM spec. I'd like to see if I can modify a cheap one to taper more radically so it restricts motion a bit less--but it could make the edges too sharp.

Personally I find that the Apple Watch (I have a Series 2) has caused me wrist pain right from the outset.

When I put the watch in Airplane mode, the pain goes away. I suspect the pain in my case is because of electromagnetic radiation.

Of course, this limits he usefulness of the Apple Watch. So I wear it only occasionally and limit its use in a non-Airplane mode to an absolute minimum.

More research is needed on the detrimental effects of radiation - especially when devices used in closed proximity to the body.

@Apple what do you have to say?

Thanks for the response.

You’re probably technically right. However, the pain that people like me experience is real. I don’t know what the underlying cause is.

All I know is that, after a period of time, I can definitely sense the pain when I forget to turn on Airplane mode when wearing the Apple Watch.

I had the wrist pain issue with a Fitbit HR (which I stopped using). So this isn’t specific issue pertaining to the Apple Watch in my case.

Historically, people and industries have been in denial (for example, the tobacco industry denying the linkage to cancer). Time will tell if wearables have negative effects.

In the meanwhile, to avoid pain, I have no choice other than not using these devices or using it in a very limited manner (fully activated during exercise time only) with workarounds such as airplane mode at other times when wearing the device.

Point noted on this being a user to user forum. Thanks.

jrylek wrote:

Heart rate monitor. Go to privacy and turn it off

Why would I do that? It would significantly decrease the utility of the device for me and, the green lights that are the only visible part of the HRM are not capable of causing any sort of pain.

33Scottie wrote:

I just received my Apple Watch today and started getting the sensation in my wrist as well, which is how I found this thread I turned off LTE and so far it seems to be helping a little. I'll next try turning off Wi-Fi on the watch. I'll likely return it since it seems I can't use LTE. I think some people like myself are just sensitive to LTE and Wi-Fi signals. Similar to how some of us are sensitive to certain foods.

To date, studies done by actual scientists, not school girls, done with proper methodology, have not shown that anyone is sensitive to WiFi or LTE or Bluetooth.

Pain has a highly subjective component. You believe the problem is WiFi or LTE. You know that you turned off LTE so you feel better. That doesn't mean that the LTE was the actual cause of your pain. Dollars to doughnuts, if there was a way for someone to turn off the LTE indicator without actually turning off the LTE and they had told you that the LTE was off, you would have felt the same relief. Please understand, I'm not saying you're imagining the pain. I'm saying that pain can be ameliorated by belief.

Rather than do unscientific experiments, see your doctor.

Div-man,

I had a similar problem. I was using my apple watch during the whole day, to know better the watch, to just use it, whatever the reason and after 10 days (more or less) I had a big pain in the joints between the thumb and forefinger and I didn't know why. The pain in the joints was so bigger (last Thursday) that I decide not to wear the Apple watch and I use a normal one. I could not do any exercise with the left hand and I was thinking to go to a hospital. After 2 days without using the Apple watch, the pain disappeared also without any reasonable explanation. I really don't know the reason but I think is related to the sensors (green lights) that affected some nerves in my left hand. I like my Apple watch and I going to start using it again tomorrow but not the full day, maybe only during exercise and let's see. Renato Neves

The link to Contact Apple Support is at the top of this page, on the right.

vivekanandamfromvancouver wrote:

Hi

yes, I am also facing the problems and looking for the solutions for it.

As has been stated here multiple times: Contact your doctor.