Edema is a disorder that can cause serious discomfort to the patient. Read on ti find out more about the disorder, its symptoms, and how wedge pillows can help deal with this condition effectively.
What is Edema?
The human body is primarily made up of water, wherein the body works to make sure that you maintain proper water levels in your cells. It naturally balances water intake and water loss. It works to keep the total amount of water and electrolytes in the blood constant. However, a number of health conditions or situations can cause too much fluid to collect in the tissues and cause noticeable swelling. When the capillaries in your blood vessels begin to leak fluids into your tissues, this causes puffiness and skin tightness, usually in your lower limbs because there’s more pressure on these areas.
Edema is one such condition where the body swells up due to the excess fluid trapped in the body’s tissues. Although edema can affect any part of your body, you may notice it more in your hands, arms, feet, ankles and legs. Edema can be the result of medication, pregnancy or an underlying disease — often congestive heart failure, kidney disease or cirrhosis of the liver. Taking medication to remove excess fluid and reducing the amount of salt in your food often relieves edema. When edema is a sign of an underlying disease, the disease itself requires separate treatment. Peripheral edema is a form of edema which causes swelling in your arms and legs. This happens when fluid gathers in your tissues and causes a heavy, swollen and even painful area in the body.
Symptoms of Edema
The symptoms of peripheral edema depend on the cause of the condition. You will generally notice a swollen area that is stretching the skin and can feel warm to the touch. You may notice that the swelling depends on gravity. So it may appear more serious when you are standing than if you have the area elevated.
There’s a difference between pitting and non-pitting edema. If you apply pressure to the swollen area and your finger leaves an indentation, you have pitting edema. Water retention from too much sodium in the body, standing or sitting for too long, or pressure from your body weight usually causes it. Non-pitting edema, on the other hand, does not leave a mark when you press your finger into it. This can be a more serious condition caused by issues with the heart, lungs, liver or kidneys.
Generally, the most common signs and symptoms of peripheral edema include:
- A full or heavy feeling in your arm or leg
- Swelling and puffiness, leaving a dent with your finger when you press on the area (which is called “pitting”)
- Skin that feels tight and warm
- Immobility or difficulty moving joints around the affected area
- Pain and tension around the affected area
- A feeling of pressure around the affected area, which can be related to pressure on the veins in your legs when shoes, clothing or jewelry becomes tight around the swollen area
Risk Factors and Causes
A number of health conditions or situations can cause edema. Sometimes the cause is a harmless case of water retention. But it can also result from a chronic, serious condition that needs to be treated immediately. Here’s a breakdown of the possible peripheral edema causes and risk factors:
Water retention: When the body holds on to or stores water and it builds up in the tissues, this causes temporary swelling in the hands, ankles, feet and face. This can happen when you consume too much sodium. The sodium holds onto water and keeps it in the body. Water retention is also caused by sitting or standing in one position for too long and hormone changes during a woman’s monthly period or pregnancy. When a woman is pregnant, her uterus puts pressure on the major blood vessel that’s responsible for returning blood to the heart from the legs. This pressure can allow fluids to get into her tissues, causing swelling in the legs, ankles and feet.
Inflammation: Inflammation in your tissues may cause swelling in your legs. Inflammation may be a response to allergies, trauma (like a broken bone or sprained ankle), an infection or wound in the leg, arthritis, gout or cellulitis.
Certain medications: Certain drugs can cause edema because they cause the body’s sodium and water levels to become unbalanced, or they contribute to renal dysfunction. Medications that may cause this issue include NSAIDs (such as ibuprofen or naproxen), insulin, steroid therapy and drugs for high blood pressure.
Low protein levels in the blood: Fluid leaks out of your blood vessels more easily when there isn’t enough of the protein called albumin (protein that is made by the liver) in your blood. Malnutrition or health conditions that affect how much protein the body produces, like liver and kidney diseases can cause low protein levels in your blood.
Problems with your veins: When your veins aren’t able to transport enough blood to the feet and then back to the heart — which is called venous insufficiency — your ankles and feet become swollen. Blood gathers in your legs, forcing fluid out of your blood vessels and into the surrounding tissue. This is the most common cause of leg swelling among people over 50 years old, especially in women. Edema can be a sign of thrombosis. This develops as a result of slow-flowing blood and causes a blood clot. Peripheral edema can also be caused by varicose veins. These occur when blood pools in the legs or when blood flow slows down.
Kidney diseases: When the kidneys aren’t able to remove enough sodium and water from the body, this creates pressure on your blood vessels and can lead to peripheral edema.
Congestive heart failure: If the heart becomes too weak to pump blood around the body, it will gather in front of the heart and put pressure on your veins. This can cause fluid to seep out into the surrounding tissue. This leaking fluid leads to swelling in the legs or in the abdomen.
Lung conditions: If pressure in the lungs and heart gets very high, which can happen when your body is reacting to certain medical conditions, this can cause the legs and feet to swell. This can happen as a result of serious lung conditions like emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis. Or it can occur if you have congestive heart failure and your heart isn’t strong enough to pump the blood that’s returning from your lungs. Since the heart, lung, kidneys and brain all work together to regulate fluid levels in the body, when one organ is forced to work harder as a result of a medical condition, hormones are often released to either retain or provide more fluids. Fluid buildup in the lungs is called pulmonary edema. This means water collects in the air sacs of the lungs. Pulmonary edema can make it very difficult to breathe.
Treatment for Edema
Treatment for peripheral edema depends on the cause of the condition. Doctors will attempt to pinpoint the cause of the swelling by completing a thorough history and examination. He or she will also test your urine in order to make a diagnosis. The treatment plan will depend on the underlying disorder or issue that’s causing fluid retention. Usually a doctor will recommend restricting sodium intake in order to minimize fluid retention and he will prescribe diuretic therapy.
Diuretics (like Lasix) are commonly prescribed to patients with heart failure in order to treat peripheral edema. Although emergency diuretics are sometimes necessary, patients who use diuretics for a long period of time sometimes become dependent on them and experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop taking these medications. Research shows that chronic diuretic use can lead to potassium deficiency and the depletion of blood volume in your blood vessels.
For patients with non-pitting edema, diuretics are usually not effective. Because non-pitting edema is difficult to treat, doctors will commonly suggest elevating the legs periodically and wearing compression stockings or devices to reduce swelling.
Living with Edema
When it comes to a condition like Edema, it is important to find a way to manage the condition in your day to day life, while undergoing treatment for the same. The primary lifestyle issue that people suffering from Edema face is being unable to sleep properly because of their swollen limbs. This is where a leg elevation pillow can really come in handy.
These pillows are designed to help keep your leg in place while you sleep at night, keeping it elevated so that circulation and blood flow can happen naturally, without any issues. Leg rest pillows work by elevating the legs, taking the pressure off your leg veins first and foremost, encouraging the blood to flow out of your leg veins emptying them, and undoing the pressure of the day by giving your veins a break for a few hours as blood flow moves away from the legs and courses through the rest of your body.
For Edema patients, a wedge pillow can make sure that the excess fluids from the swollen limb can drain out during the night, thus helping patients enjoy a good night’s sleep. Regular use, when supplemented with medical treatments, can also cure edema completely, thus making these pillows a must have for patients suffering from this condition.
Final Thoughts
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