As I was doing my power walk this morning, I got to looking at my hands, and
wrists and damn, they were swollen to the point where it hurt to clench my
hands into a fist.
When I got home and took my socks off , I noticed they had made an imprint
on my ankles.
That’s never happened before.
Because I have hypertension that is now more or less under control with the
diet and exercise, I have cut my BP meds (prinivil) in half along with my
diuretic. I have been doing this for several months with my doc’s blessing,
but this morning I just took a whole one of my diuretic (maxzide). I’m about
to go to bed so I will see if the edema has lessened when I get up later
today.
For the record, I don’t have trouble peeing and I keep myself well-hydrated
with a camelbak while I’m walking or cycling.
Can’t figure out why I’m retaining fluid. Gonna talk to one of the ER docs
tonight…
I’ve noticed in the past that after a run my fingers and palms would swell slightly. I have not noticed this phenomenon in years. I thought it was just due to the blood coursing through my hands. Increased volume of blood would swell the hands slightly. As I said, I haven’t noticed this lately.
I haven’t put additional salt in food (from a salt shaker, that is) for over 20 years. My sweat has very little salt (as a result), yet my hands have swelled up more recently than my limitation of salt intake. So, I seriously doubt salt is the problem. Moreover, when running, you sweat, which consists of water and such electrolytes as salt and, to a lesser extent, potassium. So running would not exacerbate any salt problem. Further, IMHO it’s not water that’s causing the swelling, but blood. When my hands did swell, they were also redder.
I suffer from fluid retention, mostly in summer.
I have investigated this over the years and there are a number of possibilities. It is more often a problem for women and it can be heart or liver problems. Doctors usually say to elivate feet etc however for active people this is not possible. For my particular case, I have discovered that exercise and water drinking help to shed the fluid. At its worse I can poke a huge indentation in my foot. As with you, I can also get that swollen look in my hands when I exercise but not often. Unlike you, I don’t sweat much at all - leading me to think that either I get rid of excess fluid when I exercise or my blood is pumped faster when exercising (but not sure how this would alleviate the swelling?).
Anyway this probably doesn’t help you much but in my experience, neither do doctors. It may be worth double checking your blood pressure and some other heart tests. A friend with the same problem had numerous tests to get to the bottom of it. They were mostly inconclusive but the doctor reckoned she had a very very slight heart condition that caused the retention.
It surely could be heat-related, and one of the docs I spoke with says that the swelling couldbe caused by blood being shunted to the extremities - oxygenated blood, because that is where the greatest need is.
In retrospect, my power walk this am was 6.2 miles at 4.2 mph, which is an increase for me, so this may also be the reason I had not noticed it before.
I am training to ride a Century next Spring, so getting in shape and increasing endurance is important for me as I’d rather not look like The Michelin Man as I’m riding along.
