Edema? Anyone know about this?
 

I just figured out that i have edema in my legs and abdomen, (swelling) I have had it for a year or more, its just places that if you push on them, you make a dent. It is very weird and very embarrassing. It seemed like the edema on my abdomen is getting better now, but when I do a web search for edema, i get lots of scray stuff about heart failure. Can it just be caused by not drinking enough water for years? I would think if I had heart failure, I would have some other sort of symptons?

Does anyone have any experience in this? I'm starting to get freaked out

Hey there, Heather -- I thought it was related to poor diet, poor circulation, and excess fluid retention. I also was under the impression that it was reversible with.....surprise!.....improved diet, increased physical activity, increased water intake and reduced sodium intake, and the weight loss that would result from all of the above. I'll look into it, but that's what I thought.

The key is that you continue to improve on these areas. (1) You're already working on the exercise -- once your knee gets better, you can try doing that tape more than once a day.....you shouldn't push yourself to do more than you're able during a session, but there's no reason not to try it twice a day instead of just once. And just add to your general activity a little at a time as well. Get up and walk around just for the heck of it; take the long way to get to where you're walking; take the stairs and pause for breaks if you have to. Just stay concious of increasing your activity levels as time is passing. You'll find that the more you do, the more you CAN do. And if you've got Edema, your body needs it. (2) You are making dietary improvements -- the elimination of soda comes to mind, and that's great! Now maybe you can look at decreasing your sodium and fat intake or making some other improvement? (3) You referred to increasing your water intake -- that's great too -- and very important to reducing the effects of edema and more. Just open up your mouth and chug-a-lug! Challenge yourself to increase your intake till you reach the recommended amount. You don't have to do as much as this if you don't want to, but some of us (myself included,) drink 120-160 oz. per day. I swear it helps me with my loss and also fluid retention.

I'll see what else I can come up with....but I believe this is a pretty common byproduct of morbid obesity, and is completely treatable. :)

Heather, if you haven't been watching your sodium very carefully, then now is definitely the time to start. If you happen to eat a lot of processed meals (frozen meals especially), there are a lot of sodium in those. Just being a little more concious of the sodium content in your foods should help quite a bit. Upping your water intake will definitely also help get rid of the edema.

feeling a little better now. I was freaking out earlier. Heart failure, diseased liver and kidney failure was what it was saying on the net,..lol I used to eat a lot more processed foods than I do now, and drank alot of water today so hopefully it will contiue to get better:-)

Hi Heather

I went to see my physician about this very thing yesterday. I too had looked up my symtoms on the net and found lots of information. There's edema and lympendema (sp) one is caused by vein problems and the other is related to pooling of fluid from the lymph nodes I think. He said because I didn't have varicose veins it was probably caused from the lymph glands. He prescribed duiertics and stressed to me that it was important not to sit in one place for long periods. Get up and move or make your muscles work while you sit because the vessels carrying the fluid have no other way of making the pooled fluid move (ie no pulse / circulatory) except by movement of muscles. I've paraphrased alot but I think I got the guist of the info. Hope this helps. Have you been to the doctor?

Joy :wave:

Edema can be caused by many things. The most important thing is to not self diagnose yourself based on what you read or hear about on the internet. Get yourself to a doctor. Likely it is not anything major but it is better to let your family doctor what is going on and let him/her figure out what is the problem.