Pickleball is the latest sports craze. It's causing a surge in injuries and insurance costs.

Every year that pickleball has seen an increase in popularity, Dr. Jeremy Alland has seen an increase in patients with maladies related to the sport.

"Upper extremity stuff is not as common, but lower extremity things like hamstring pulls, calf strains and Achilles problems are common," the sports medicine physician at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush said. "Pickleball has a lot of bending, so you see a lot of people with back pain, too."

Bloomberg News reported that a recent analysis indicates the sport's popularity has caused a multimillion-dollar spike in health care costs, which in part caused at least one insurer, UnitedHealth, to lose 3% of its market value due to higher-than-expected health care use.

The analysis done by investment firm UBS Group AG suggested pickleball was responsible for nearly $400 million in medical costs this year for Americans. The injuries largely affect older players who have taken up the sport in droves.

"It's not surprising, really," Alland said. "We would expect to see an increase in injuries and amount of cost because of the increased interest in the sport."

Alland believes the sport's meteoric popularity is not all doom and gloom, though.

"What that doesn't tell you is the benefit coming from it, too," he said. "These are people as active before maybe becoming healthier."

The UBS analysis indicated more than 80% of the pickleball-related injuries were treated through outpatient visits.

The analysis is based on a 2021 study published by the National Library of Medicine titled "Nonfatal senior pickleball and tennis-related injuries treated in United States emergency departments, 2010-2019."

The study analyzed nearly 30,000 pickleball injuries during that time and found older adult men were 3.5 times more likely to suffer a sprain or strain than women of the same age, while older adult women were nine times more likely to suffer a wrist fracture than men of the same age.

"Very rarely have I told someone they can't play pickleball anymore after an injury," Alland said.

The doctor said pickleball's reputation as a low-impact sport safer for senior citizens to play belies the notion that it's still an athletic endeavor requiring proper stretching and moderation for beginners.

"You still need to warm up for 10 to 20 minutes before playing to get the body ready to go, and also properly wind down afterward," Alland said. "We see a lot of overuse injuries because people are doing too much too fast."

He said new players should never play on back-to-back days for a few weeks. They should ease into the sport, no matter how they feel.

"The part we forget about most is recovery," Alland said. "Many of the injuries we are seeing are exacerbations of underlying chronic conditions, like arthritis or other joint problems."