What's wrong with swollen legs

If you experience edema in a certain part of your body, you must go to the hospital for examination. Because sometimes edema in the body is caused by a disease. For example, if your eyelids are swollen when you wake up in the morning, this may be related to kidney disease. However, sometimes edema is also caused by physiological reasons. What's with the swollen legs?

Some people often have swollen legs, some pregnant women will have swollen legs, and some people have swollen legs for no apparent reason. Therefore, we need to figure out what causes the edema so that we can carry out symptomatic treatment. What causes leg swelling? Experts introduce us to functional leg swelling.

Functional edema can be divided into the following categories:

Hyperthermic edema In hot summer or when working under high temperatures, mild edema of the lower limbs or hands may sometimes occur.

Postural edema, also known as traveler's edema, occurs when people walk or stand for a long time. For some people, after walking for a long time, the venous return of the lower limbs will be affected, the capillary exudation will increase, and the lower limb edema will occur; for some people, the venous return of the lower limbs is blocked due to the need to stand for a long time at work, resulting in lower limb edema.

Obesity edema is more common in obese women, and the edema is located in the lower limbs. People who are obese should strengthen their physical exercise and lose weight appropriately, and the edema will naturally disappear.

Premenstrual edema: About 25% of women may experience edema 10 to 14 days before menstruation, and most of them are mild swelling of the lower limbs. In severe cases, there may be swelling of the face and hands, and it is often accompanied by irritability, anger, insomnia, headache, and breast pain. As menstruation comes, urination increases and the symptoms gradually disappear. In a small number of patients, edema may occur during menstruation or after menstruation.

Pregnant women normally experience edema in the late stages of pregnancy because the enlarged uterus compresses the inferior vena cava, obstructing blood return and often causing mild lower limb edema. But it disappears after rest, there is no protein in the urine, and the blood pressure is not high, which can be distinguished from the symptoms of pregnancy poisoning.

Senile edema When people age, their heart, liver, and kidney functions decline, and the permeability of blood vessel walls increases, so edema often occurs. This type of edema was not found to be abnormal after various examinations.

There are many drugs for edema, which can affect the water and sodium metabolism in the body and cause edema. For example, women who regularly take drugs such as cortisone acetate, prednisone, birth control pills, and indomethacin may develop edema, but it will gradually disappear after stopping the medication.

Swollen eyelids when waking up in the morning Some people have swollen eyelids when they wake up in the morning. The reason is that during sleep, eyelid activity decreases and blood flow slows down, which leads to increased local capillary pressure, driving fluid out of the blood vessels into the loose eyelid tissue and causing edema. This edema is not caused by disease.

Idiopathic edema is edema without any identifiable cause, which is more common in middle-aged women. This type of edema is mostly in the lower limbs and is related to emotions and body posture. It gets heavier when standing upright and gets lighter when lying down. The weight difference between morning and evening is more than 1.4 kg.

What causes swollen legs? Sometimes it is due to physiological reasons, and sometimes it is caused by illness. In fact, there is no need to worry about leg swelling caused by physiological reasons, it will gradually disappear. If the swelling of the legs is caused by an illness, you need to go to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible to find out what the illness is causing the swelling. Early detection and treatment will lead to early recovery.