Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Oedema
Water gathers in the tissue — the cause is rarely the water itself but heart, kidneys or veins.
Also known as: edema · swollen legs · water retention
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Water in the tissue is not a condition of its own but a sign — and the distribution says most about where it comes from. On both sides at ankles and lower legs, stronger in the evening than in the morning, with a lasting mark from the sock: that is the most common picture and fits long standing and sitting, warmth, weak veins, heart, kidneys or liver. One-sided, with warmth, redness and a tight pain, often arisen quickly: that is something else and should be looked at the same day — a thrombosis can lie behind it. Water in the face and around the eyes in the morning points more to the kidneys. A widely underrated reason is medication: some blood pressure drugs, cortisone, anti-inflammatories, hormonal preparations and a few diabetes drugs hold water back. A lack of protein plays a part too, because protein keeps water inside the vessel. And one point often got wrong: drinking less does not help — the body then tends to hold back even more. What helps is movement, elevation and finding the cause.
When short of water the body tends to hold back more — unless a doctor explicitly says otherwise.
Above heart level, ten minutes several times a day — more effective than any ointment.
Walking, heel raises, ankle circles while sitting — muscles pump the water back.
A common and easily corrected reason — the timing shows it.
Several times a day put the legs above heart level for ten minutes; in the evening while watching television anyway.
Swelling of the eyelids together with fever and muscle pain one to two weeks after raw pork or game is a picture of its own, not a fluid-retention problem.
Water tablets pull water out of the blood through the kidney — they work for fluid from the heart, liver or kidney. For fluid from weak veins or the lymph system they do little and can dry out the circulation while the leg stays swollen. What works there is pressure from outside and elevation. Ankle swelling from calcium channel blockers affects up to one in ten people and goes within weeks after changing the drug.
A visible dent after finger pressure appears only once about two to three litres of extra fluid have gathered — before that only a rise in weight shows. So daily weighing is the most sensitive early sign in heart failure: two kilos in three days is a signal. Swelling on both sides points to heart, liver, kidney or veins; on one side to thrombosis or lymph. Raising the legs above heart level works within hours.
Treat the cause.
The most common picture — the sock mark stays.
That is something else and is looked at the same day.
Points more to the kidneys than to the legs.
Fluid in the abdomen should be assessed, especially with a liver history.
A litre of water is a kilo — the scale sees it before the eye does.
Where water tablets are running, potassium goes with them. The value belongs measured regularly — swelling of both legs with breathlessness is a different matter from puffy ankles on a hot evening.
Traditionally used as a “flush”; the effect rests mostly on the amount of fluid drunk with it. With oedema from heart or kidney weakness, drinking more is exactly the wrong route.
Holds salt and water back. With heart and liver disease this axis runs high — which is why drugs that act at exactly this point work so well against water in the legs.
The counterpart: the heart reports being overfilled and drives salt and water out. The blood value used to look for heart failure comes from the same family.
Holds water back and lowers the sodium in doing so. That explains why with water retention and a low sodium one drinks less rather than more.
Swelling tied to the cycle before the bleeding is common and harmless. It differs from the rest in vanishing again with the bleeding.
The calf muscle pump drives the water back. Walking acts immediately on leg swelling — sitting with the legs hanging is the opposite.
Less salt leaves less water in the tissue. Drinking less does not help — the body then holds back all the more. New one-sided swelling belongs investigated.
Traditionally used as a flushing tea: 3 to 4 cups a day over one to two weeks, with enough to drink alongside. With water in the legs from heart or kidney this is the wrong route — there the cause belongs treated.
The same application and the same limit. The leaves increase the amount of urine, they do not drain tissue against a backup.
In a leg massage from below upward — the direction is the effective part, the oil the pleasant one. With water from heart or kidney the cause belongs treated.
Traditionally used for draining and, for exactly that reason, not intended with kidney disease or in pregnancy.
The Spleen “holds the dampness” — swelling, heaviness and loose stool belong together in this system. With water from heart or kidney the cause belongs treated.
The point for strength and transformation, below the knee. Traditionally used for heaviness in the legs and exhaustion.