What Makes Your Feet Swell – Edema occurs when fluid builds up in your tissues, often in your feet, legs, and ankles. Edema can affect anyone, especially people who are pregnant and adults age 65 and older. Treatment involves lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise.
Edema is swelling caused by fluid trapped in the tissues of your body, usually in your feet and ankles. Your provider will test your edema by pressing their finger into the swollen area (pitting) to determine how much fluid is in your tissues (grade).
What Makes Your Feet Swell
Edema is the medical term for swelling caused by fluid trapped in the tissues of your body. Edema most often occurs in your feet, ankles, and legs, but it can also affect other parts of your body, such as your face, hands, and abdomen.
What Is Pitting Edema?
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Edema can affect anyone, but the condition mainly affects pregnant women and adults aged 65 or older.
Edema is common because there are many causes associated with the condition. Mild cases of edema resolve on their own, so the exact frequency of occurrence is unknown.
Edema causes parts of your body to enlarge (swell), which may prevent you from performing your daily tasks. Simple lifestyle changes, such as elevating the swollen part of your body or moving when you sit or stand for long periods of time, can reduce swelling and help you feel better. Sometimes edema is a symptom of an underlying health condition. Therefore, if you experience symptoms of edema, contact your doctor.
Causes, Symptoms, Treatments, And Prevention Of Edema (swelling)
A symptom of edema is swelling in your body. Swelling occurs when part of your body enlarges because fluid builds up in your tissues. Swelling can occur anywhere on your body, but most commonly affects your feet, ankles, and legs.
After your healthcare provider makes an edema diagnosis, the next step is to determine the cause of the fluid buildup in your tissues. There are several possible causes for an edema diagnosis, including:
Your healthcare provider will perform a physical examination to diagnose edema, followed by diagnostic tests to determine the cause. They will look for swelling, especially on areas of your body where your skin looks shiny or stretched.
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The edema assessment is a scale used to identify the severity of your edema diagnosis and estimate how much fluid has built up in your tissues.
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Your healthcare provider will test an area of your body for edema by gently pressing your finger on a swollen area of your skin for five to 15 seconds (pitting test). After they release the pressure, a dimple (pit) will appear in your skin. The pit indicates that there is fluid in your tissues.
The edema rating scale measures how quickly the pit returns to normal (rebound) after a pitting test. The scale includes:
Treatment for edema varies depending on the cause, especially if the cause is related to an underlying health condition. For example:
In addition to treating the underlying cause of edema, there are a few steps you can take to prevent fluid from building up in your body:
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In some cases, the cause of edema may be too much salt in your diet. Salt causes your body to retain water, which can leak into your tissues and cause swelling. Making lifestyle changes to reduce the amount of salt in your diet can improve your edema diagnosis.
Depending on the cause of your diagnosis, edema may be temporary or permanent. The swelling normally lasts for several days. You will experience the most swelling in the first two days, and it should subside by the third day. Pursuing treatment from your healthcare provider will reduce the amount of swelling you may experience. If your swelling does not go away after a few days of treatment, call your doctor.
Sometimes you can’t prevent the cause of the edema if it is due to an underlying health condition, such as heart failure, liver or kidney disease, but you can work with your healthcare provider to manage symptoms.
If the cause of edema is too much salt intake, adjusting your diet to reduce the amount of salt in the foods you eat can prevent edema.
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You can also prevent edema by exercising more often. Sitting or standing without moving can cause fluid to build up in your tissues. If you notice that you have been sitting for an extended period of time and you are able to do so, get up or move your body; it reduces the chance of swelling.
It is very important to consult your doctor if you experience edema or swelling in your body. Edema can stretch your skin and if left untreated, swelling can increase and cause serious health problems.
Edema can be a short or long term condition depending on the cause. Treatment is available to help you manage underlying conditions that can cause edema, or you can make simple lifestyle changes to reduce swelling and fluid buildup in your body.
It is important to protect swollen areas of your body from extra pressure, injury, and extreme temperatures. Skin injuries caused by swollen areas take longer to heal and are more likely to become infected.
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The ICD-10-CM (International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification) diagnostic code for edema is R60.9. For healthcare providers, this code describes the diagnosis, symptoms and need for treatment. The code is used by all healthcare providers in the US.
Edema is common and varies in severity for each person diagnosed with the condition, based on the cause. If you are pregnant, it is normal to experience swelling as your due date approaches. Normally, the edema goes away on its own if you have a mild case, and medications and treatment are available if you have a more severe case.
If you are not pregnant and you notice unexpected swelling in any part of your body, contact your doctor for an examination. Edema can be a sign of an underlying health condition and early diagnosis and treatment can lead to the best prognosis. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we support. Why trust us?
This article was medically reviewed on June 26, 2019 by Medical Review Board Member Rekha Kumar, MD.
Swelling And Pain Behind Toes On Right Foot (mtp Joint?). Top Of Foot Hurts When Walking Most Of Time.
If you can’t seem to put on those strappy sandals that looked so cute last summer, or if your previously slender ankles and calves start to swell like Snoopy during the Thanksgiving Day Parade, it may simply be due to spending a long day in jail. pumps that are half a size too small, but it can also be a signal that something else is going on in your body: “There are probably fifty different things that can cause feet, ankles and legs to swell,” says Britt H. Tonnessen, MD, a vascular surgeon from Yale Medicine.
One of the reasons feet and legs swell more than arms and fingers, for example, is simply that gravity pulls the body’s fluids toward the lower extremities, says Dr. Tonnessen. “I tell my patients: If you were on the moon, you wouldn’t notice it happening so often!” She goes on to explain that the body has two drainage systems: there are the veins, the structures that carry blood from your legs back to your heart; and then there are the lymphatic vessels, which are microscopic channels that move fluids throughout your body. “These two systems work together to get the fluid out of your legs. But if fluid remains in your feet, legs or ankles, that swelling is called edema.”
“If there is just a little bit of swelling at the end of the day, that’s very common and probably nothing serious,” continues Dr. Tonnessen, “but as it starts to progress, you notice that there is more swelling after a few weeks or months. If the swelling is in only one foot or leg instead of both, or if there is any association with shortness of breath, you should consult a doctor.”
Whether your job keeps you on your toes or you’re running around running errands all day, you can end up with sore, sore, and yes, swollen feet. Conversely, if you’ve started a new job that requires you to sit most of the time, or if you’re lying down due to an injury or mobility issues, and your legs just hang straight down all day, you may also experience what doctors call
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– swelling related to gravity. In these cases, resting your feet on a pillow at the end of the day would help get your feet back to size. Dr. Tonnessen is also a big proponent of wearing compression stockings to combat swelling: “They run from the foot to the knee and fit slightly more snugly around the foot and ankle to prevent fluid accumulation,” she explains.
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