When swollen legs

Your feet may swell up from time to time, under certain conditions, even if you are perfectly healthy: during long flights; some women during menstruation swollen due to fluid retention; if you have been too long in the sun, your feet may swell; this reaction can cause general allergic to something; and of course - varicose veins; any injury, sprained ankle or foot. But apart from those obvious things, there are some painful conditions in which there is a permanent swelling of the legs, ankles and feet.

According to statistics, a chronic swelling of the legs and feet is often the result of heart failure or phlebitis of the lower limbs. Easy to separate these two states. Phlebitis usually affects only one leg, congestive heart failure - both; phlebitis disease, heart swelling - no. Depending on the causes of edema have their own characteristics. Consider first heart failure.

The left half of the heart (the left ventricle) pumps blood to the whole body through the arteries. This blood flow to the tissues, where it gives up its oxygen and collect carbon dioxide, CO2, and other waste products. Freed from the oxygen blood then travels through the veins to the right half of the heart, which drives her to the lungs for oxygen refill. It then returns to the left side, and the cycle begins again.

When the heart muscle is weakened by a heart attack, sustained, untreated high blood pressure, a virus or disease of heart valves, it is not strong enough to pump all the blood to the lungs, which is returned to it from the veins. After a while, the blood begins to accumulate in the veins. As a result, the liver, located below the heart fills with blood and increases. Eventually vein, even on foot, is also increasing. In certain period the liquid component of blood seeping into the fabric, causing its swelling.

When the left side of the heart is weak, fresh blood from the lungs can not do, and lingers there. This "pulmonary congestion" causes shortness of breath and cough. The right and left side of the heart is usually weaken together, which is why any patient with heart failure found swelling in the legs and difficulty breathing.

Let's consider other causes of swelling of the lower extremities.

Phlebitis occurs when one or more of Vienna, on foot surface or deep inside, becomes inflamed or clogged by a blood clot. Inflammation causes pain, swelling and redness. Blockage of veins causes the blood to stagnate and seep into the surrounding tissue, the wall of the veins become more permeable as a result of inflammation. In contrast, heart failure, in which both legs swollen, phlebitis usually affects only one.

Individuals with severe kidney disease are swelling everywhere - on the feet, the hands, the face (it is difficult to remove rings from fingers or wear them). This swelling is a common result of loss of protein (albumin) in urine. Albumin produced by the liver and circulates with blood. A healthy kidney does not allow him to go out into the urine. But when patients the kidneys into the urine albumin falls. Insurance companies ask for your urine before you insure you, to make sure that no albumin in the urine, which would indicate kidney disease. Albumin is not only in blood, but also in the tissues. In healthy kidneys balance observed. But when a large amount of albumin lost nature of trying to restore this balance, and fluid flows from the bloodstream into the tissue to increase there albumin. This causes excess liquid and general edema.

Diseases of the liver - in advanced stages (not easy hepatitis, which you have earned by eating contaminated fish) - cause the legs to swell for two reasons. First, the damaged liver cells are unable to produce enough albumin; the overall result is the same as if the kidneys into the urine passed it: tissue swell when trying to align the body's concentration of albumin in the blood and the surrounding tissues. Second, the liver appears scar tissue, through which the blood moves from the legs to the heart, can not get through and stagnates. Large cancer or a tumor in the abdomen may also compress the veins, giving the swelling on his feet.

Fasting. Have you ever thought why the starving children bloated stomach? Swelling of the abdomen is the consequence of lack of dietary protein. Therefore, the liquid coming out of the blood vessels in the tissue - in this case, into the abdominal cavity, as it does in diseases of the kidneys and liver.

The sharp decline in thyroid function will common swelling, including swelling of the feet. As with protein unbalance renal or hepatic origin are the consequence of the swelling of the fluid loss and the appearance of its vascular tissue in an attempt to balance the concentration of albumin.

In recent years, she bursts on the scene, literally exploded another reason for the swelling of feet. This occurs in individuals who performed coronary bypass surgery. In this operation, veins strips use one or both legs, as new blood vessels, allowing blood to bypass the heart vessels clogged. If Vienna is removed at a considerable distance, the legs swell up. This phenomenon, being serious, are not troublesome, usually disappears after a few months, as the remaining veins adapt to new conditions.

Some medications can cause swelling of the feet:

• Testosterone (most often prescribed for impotence)
• long-term administration of steroids, cortisone related (in arthritis, asthma, cancer)
• estrogens (female hormones)
• birth control pills,
• some antidepressants,
• medications that lower blood pressure, such as aprezolin, reserpine, aldomet, Ezim.

When the pericardium, pericardium, ill (usually after a virus or other infection or after heart surgery), he can become thick and stiff as armor around the heart. This hampers the normal contraction and relaxation of the heart muscle. As a result, less blood enters the right ventricle of the heart, it stagnates swell vein neck, abdomen and legs in the end.

You've got a general idea of ​​how and why your legs and feet swell. The following information will help you understand exactly what you have.

If the swelling on one side, you do not have in common diseases, like lack of protein in the blood, heart failure, liver disease or kidney disease.

When heart failure is usually swollen legs and not the face or fingers.

If your stomach and legs were swollen, the reason probably in the liver than in the heart, especially if in the beginning there were swelling in the abdomen.

Here are some other observations that you have to do.

Press your finger on heavily swollen leg and hold for a few seconds, then release. The result was a dent, which persists for a minute or two, it is called "dimple". They are never in edema due to reduced thyroid function, but are observed in most other cases.

If you are a man, and in addition to swollen feet were yellow, your breasts grew, you started to shave only a day or two, your palms are red and you are short of breath, you can be sure that you have a serious liver disease.

If you have a swollen face and legs, it's probably not from a disease of the heart or liver. Think of the reduced function of the thyroid gland, about some common allergic reaction to compression of the heart or pericardium of trichinosis, an infection that you get from eating deep fried pork badly contaminated with Trichinella worms, or kidney disease.

If the skin on the feet has swollen brown pigmentation, especially around the ankles, then your problem is long-standing, usually associated with chronic dilated varicose veins. Pigmentation is due to the blood that seeped through the vein wall into the surrounding tissue.

If painful swelling is red and hot, you seem to have hurt his leg, or she was infected, or have acute phlebitis. Uncomplicated heart failure, kidney disease or liver do not cause pain.

Suspect heart failure, if both legs are swollen and you find it difficult to breathe.

Puffiness of your feet all day or only in the evening? If this goes on all day and night, then it is very likely a disorder of protein metabolism, or trouble with the veins. If worse in the evening, then, it is likely to cause a cardiac weakness.

If swelling developed suddenly, more likely blockage, thrombosis or an infection in the veins than the general protein metabolism disorders.

If your stomach is increased before the swollen feet, the reason probably lies in the liver or in thickened pericardium. But if the swollen feet first, and then there was fluid in the abdomen, it is a problem or kidney, or heart.

Whatever the reason, do not take from your friends diuretics to quickly cope with swollen feet. This treatment is possible only after the establishment of an accurate diagnosis.

Symptom: swollen legs