As if high heels weren't causing enough pain, now huge handbags are torturing women too

Ouch! My Bag Is Killing Me -- by J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN/NY Times

WHEN Genevieve Roth decided to train for the New York City Marathon for the first time this year, she called Amy Youner, a physical therapist at SportsCare, a rehabilitation clinic in Manhattan.

During their first appointment, Ms. Youner spotted Ms. Roth’s enormous Sigerson Morrison handbag and refused to work with her unless she stopped carrying it. The bag, Ms. Youner said, would put stress on Ms. Roth’s shoulders and back, and could cause injury.

Ms. Roth, a 26-year-old editor at Details magazine, felt torn. On the one hand, she had heard that Ms. Youner was one of the best therapists in the city. On the other hand, she really loved that bag.

“Amy eventually agreed to keep seeing me, but it became a constant battle,” Ms. Roth said. “Sometimes I’d drop my bag off at work before my morning appointment with her, so she wouldn’t know I was still using it.”

In the last few years, bags have become ever more voluminous, and as women have fallen sway to their chunky charms, they have filled them up with necessities. These days many women are as burdened as mail carriers.

As a result, reports of shoulder soreness and stiff necks are on the rise and doctors, massage therapists and chiropractors are tailoring treatments for the bag-obsessed.

“In the last year or so, I’ve been seeing the same kinds of issues with adult women that I’m used to seeing with kids who carry heavy backpacks on one shoulder,” said Karen Erickson, a chiropractor who has a private practice on the Upper West Side, and also serves as a spokeswoman for the American Chiropractic Association. “They’re experiencing neck pain — not just while they’re carrying their purses, but all the time. A lot of women even get bad headaches.”

“Lately, when a patient comes in complaining of these symptoms, I walk over and pick up her purse,” she added. “Without fail, it weighs a ton.”

For the past several months, Robin Ehrlich, the director of the Eastside Massage Therapy Center on the Upper East Side, has observed clients old and new staggering under the weight of huge purses and griping about neck pain. “It’s an epidemic,” Ms. Ehrlich said. “We’re busier than ever before right now and big bags are the reason.”

A common side effect is that one shoulder becomes slightly higher than the other, she said. “A lot of women talk on their cellphones while they’re carrying these bags, which only intensifies the problem, because in addition to balancing too much weight on one side, they’re lifting the shoulder at the same time.”

Ms. Ehrlich recommends weekly massages for the pain. Gentle stretching and warm baths with Epsom salts can help bag abusers, too, she said. But she would never tell a client to ditch her Mulberry Elgin tote.

“It’s like telling a woman, ‘You cannot wear Manolo Blahniks,’ ” she said. “It’s just not realistic.”

On this point, the experts tend to agree. Marta Callotta, a chiropractor in Long Beach, Calif., said that she advises patients to clean out their purses once a week, and to use all the pockets so that the weight is dispensed evenly within the bag.

“At the end of the day, handbags are one of the biggest culprits for back pain right now,” she said. “For a year patients have been coming in to me with these giant purses and complaints of soreness. This will keep happening until the trend dies down.”

Robyn Fishelson, a spokeswoman for Bliss Spa, which has branches in London and five American cities, said that this year all locations are reporting an increase in massage clients with bag-induced back pain. To them, Bliss recommends its 75-minute deep tissue treatment at $150, which is an intense sports massage.

Dr. David Golden, an orthopedic surgeon who practices sports medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., said the effects of carrying a heavy purse are similar to those of exercising too strenuously. “The good news is, the pain will be temporary,” he said. “You usually need to carry 50 pounds or more to cause lasting back damage.”

Dr. Golden added, “As with an overly taxing workout, you can strain the muscles and induce joint pain if your bag is too heavy.” He recommended taking an anti-inflammatory, resting the injured muscles, and then starting over with a very light bag, “making sure you employ the correct form.” That means keeping the bulk of the purse toward the center of the body. The strap should rest close to the neck.

Who knew that fashion had so much in common with athletics? Perhaps this explains why loyal fans of outsize handbags tend to tick off their purse-induced woes like proud veterans of the football field.

“I’ve suffered major back, neck and shoulder pain from carrying heavy bags,” said Kimberly Whalen, 37, a literary agent in New York who recently bought the ubiquitous black Chanel carryall, which more than one fashion Web site has compared to a trash bag. “I’ve even had M.R.I.’s and cortisone treatments to help alleviate the problem.”

Sasha Charnin Morrison, 42, the fashion director at US Weekly, admitted that her bags are so large that she often gets stuck in revolving doors. “They may not be practical, but so what?” she said. “When it comes to fashion, being practical is a huge bore.”

For years, Ms. Charnin Morrison pointed out, women complained that designer bags were too small to hold anything. “Well, the designers are finally listening up,” she said. “If you go to Yves Saint Laurent or Prada or Tod’s or Chanel or Hermès this season, there are three different versions of the same bag: mini, regular and oversize.”

She said the last word as if she were describing seeing a unicorn — magical, beautiful, altogether perfect.

Ms. Charnin Morrison said she alternated between the Yves Saint Laurent Muse, the Miu Miu Coffer, the Chloé Paddington (notorious for its half-pound padlock) and the Chloé Gladys, which measures 16 by 17 by 6, and is, she said, “so heavy that some days I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end of the block.”

Dr. Erickson, the chiropractor in Manhattan, said there are ways to minimize the damage. Instead of always carrying a bag on the same side, women should switch back and forth. Because many women have a habit of unconsciously lifting the shoulder that has the purse on it to keep the straps from slipping, she suggests making an effort to square your shoulders. Or carry the bag in front of you. “It’s not exactly glamorous, but if at the end of a long day you find your shoulders aching, slip the bag off and carry it in front of your body with both arms like it’s an infant,” she said.

The American Chiropractic Association recommends that a handbag weigh no more than 10 percent of its owner’s body weight. Given that so many slim women seem to be in violation of this guide, it raises the question: What exactly are they carrying in there?

“The bigger the bag, the more I seem to need to bring with me,” said Gloria Dawson, a 25-year-old photo editor in New York. “I carry an iPod, a book, a backup magazine in case the book doesn’t go over well, makeup, a phone, my wallet, extra shoes and workout clothes, most of which I won’t even need, but it’s nice to know that it’s there.”

Chloe Thompson, 24, is used to the back pain caused by carrying big bags, but she suffered a different kind of sting in July, when her Lucky Brand slouch bag was stolen during a reunion at Brown University . “I had over $2,000 worth of stuff in that bag,” said Ms. Thompson, who works in retail analysis for Cynthia Vincent, a fashion company in New York, “my iPod, digital camera, cellphone, glasses, sunglasses, makeup kit and a ton of other belongings, including a Care Bear that I’ve had since I was born.”

Because she lost so much property, Ms. Thompson found that the theft was actually covered by her homeowner’s insurance. But before she could collect any money, she had to convince the insurance adjuster that it was possible to fit everything into a single bag.

“The woman was shocked that I could cram so much into a purse,” she recalled. “I had to explain to her that this was no ordinary-size handbag.”