I’ve got puffy feet this week.
Went on the web and the only things I found associated with it are pregnancy (not a factor) and congestive heart failure.
Anyway, the discussion of congestion heart failure seems vague why it should affect the feet. One explanation seems to be that when the heart is weak, outflow can’t keep up with the returning blood, so the blood creates a traffic jam on the return trip.
Does that make any sense?
Seems that heart rate is always changing, every time you stand up, run, sneeze, get excited, and the return flow always simply matches the outflow.
Your feet don’t get puffy every time you relax, do they?
Other explanations revolve around “cures” like cutting back on salt to lessen the amount of water in the blood.
Again, sometimes you snack on chips or pretzels, and sometimes on carrot sticks, but your feet don’t puff up.
Seems like there must be a problem with the valve system in the feet, rather than anything near the heart.
But I don’t understand how many or where these valves are.
With congestive heart failure (CHF), the heart can’t pump blood as efficiently, and so blood returning to the heart through the veins backs up, causing a buildup of fluid in the tissues (peripheral edema). Your kidneys are usually good at removing excess water, but often, CHF is due to long-time hypertension, which damages the kidneys. With them partly out of commission, it’s much easier for fluid to build up.
About the changing heart rate, yes your cardiac output increases during exercise, but so does the amount of blood RETURNING to the heart (venous return). This venous return is what controls the cardiac output, so if less is returning, less goes back out. Normally, the action of your muscles helps to push blood up through the veins in the legs up to the heart. Your feet actually DO puff up a little if you relax, due to blood pooling in the veins… and if you relax long enough you’re at risk of having the blood form a clot. That’s deep vein thrombosis, and the clot can kill you if it dislodges and moves to the lungs or brain (so walk around next time you’re on a long flight!!)
These valves are in place to help keep blood from pooling, but if the veins themselves become swollen because of excess volume, then these valves can get to the point where they no longer meet in the middle – a situation called “vein wall laxity”, which often happens in CHF. Of course that only makes it worse.
Edema in CHF isn’t only associated with the feet, by the way. The more dangerous problem is pulmonary edema.
Aviary Buddy Stalk Anatomy: My partner had some really weird puffy feet and swollen ankles lasting for a few weeks, and didn’t know what the hell it was. He searched the Internet and found congestive heart failure along with many other potential illnesses. After a battery of tests, he was sent to a respiratory specialist who diagnosed sarcoidosis. more info here: http://www.lungusa.org/diseases/lungsarcoido.html
After three months of Prednisone, there are no traces of this in his lungs. You may want to check this out. We thought it might be gout and many other things. The doc said science isn’t sure why or what causes sarcoidosis, but this it may be environmentally triggered. You may have one bout or many bout.