Doctors are warning people about "avocado hand," a term used for nerve and tendon damage experienced by those who injure themselves while slicing the fruit incorrectly.
Doctors say slicing an avocado while holding it in your hand is dangerous, and the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons wants the fruit to include warning labels, The Times of London reported.
Simon Eccles, the former president of the plastic surgery sector at the Royal Society of Medicine, said he treats four patients a week due to avocado hand injuries.
"People do not anticipate that the avocados they buy can be very ripe and there is minimal understanding of how to handle them," Eccles told The Times. "We don’t want to put people off the fruit but I think warning labels are an effective way of dealing with this. It needs to be recognizable. Perhaps we could have a cartoon picture of an avocado with a knife, and a big red cross going through it."
Three-time Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep is among those who have cut themselves while slicing avocados, E! News reported.
Dr. Nader Paksima, an orthopedic surgeon at NYU Langone’s Hand Center, called avocado hand "one of our classic injuries," Jezebel reported.
"I personally haven’t noticed any kind of a trend, from year to year, because they do pretty much come in all the time," Paksima told Jezebel. "It’s seasonal. All the sudden, it’s Cinco de Mayo, people are making a bunch of guacamole, and then you’ll see a couple."
"It’s like anything else, they come in waves," he added. "All the sudden you’ll see three or four in a row and it seems like there’s an epidemic."
The injury made its way to Twitter, with the hashtag "#avocadoinjury" trending.
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