Last night, at work, I noticed my lower legs felt swollen. My ankles looked like little tree trunks. I get home, take off my shoes, and there are shoe imprints on my feet. I hop on my scale. Yesterday morning, I weighed 137 pounds and had 20% bodyfat. Last night, I weighed 148 pounds and had 13% bodyfat (which means all the weight gain was water because the scale thinks water is muscle). Over TEN pounds in one day!
Freaking out, I hop on my rowing machine for 10 minutes. No effect except that my legs feel weird because they’re so swollen. I get on the internet to read about “edema” and I have what they call “pitting edema” where I can make a little dent in my leg that take a few moments to smooth out. I go to bed, have to get up to pee four times (very, very unusual) and am back to my normal weight this morning.
So, anyone got any ideas? I’m kinda freaked out about this. I’m 36, female, healthy, and exercise approximately 12 hours a week. I have a desk job so I sit all day. The only thing I did differently is start a relatively low-carb diet so I had celery with my lunchtime tuna instead of Triskets. And I didn’t eat 20 mints like I usually do. I did drink the 7 or so liters of water I drink everyday and had two Diet Cokes and three cups of green tea (one cup more than I usually have). And I had a little cup of sugar-free gelatin.
Sorry this is so long but I wanted to include everything relevant. Nothing I can find on the net seems to explain this. Ultrafilter, you and I answer a lot of the exercise questions, got any ideas? Or any of the medical dopers? (DrPaprika?) Anyone else ever experienced this?
I felt icky yesterday becasue I hadn’t eaten enough but feel fine today. I’m hesitant to go to the doctor since it’s only happened once (I’d feel silly). I guess I’ll see if it happens again today. Maybe it was one of those weird flukey things but, still, 10 pounds of water…?
Don’t feel silly. Unexplained edema is a symptom of some very serious things. I have it because my kidneys are damaged. Every day is the cycle you describe simply because my kidneys can’t pump strongly enough to pull the fluid from my legs while I am up and about and compensate by filtering it all out when I finally lie down at night. Also even if your legs do not look swollen they still may have excess fluid. You can check this by pressing on the shin bone low in your leg. If you still see pitting then please hie thee to a doctor.
Better to have the doctor tell me it is nothing than to have myself sick and not take care of it I always say.
ARGH, I just checked and I do still have the pitting. But my legs look normal. (or as normal as they ever look, I’ve always had big, stocky legs) I’ve never tried it before, regular legs don’t do the pitting thing? I guess I’m gonna need to break down and see someone.
First thing in the morning I have no pitting whatsoever. By evening you can see the fluid in my legs even without pressing on them. I have mild pitting now.
Obviously your doctor would be your best source of info though. Good luck!
Yeah, it’s totally excessive but I started doing it as an adolescent as a weightloss technique and now I’m just used to it. I don’t really need the liquid tho’; I can go to an all-day conference and it’s not a problem.
In a healthy 36-year old with no history of anything? ARGH. OK, I’m doing the research and refreakin’ myself out. Dang, I was hopin’ someone would say “oh, yeah, it’s 'cause of the Jello, that always makes you bloat.”
My advice is pretty much what the others have said: go see a doctor, and fast. Since you just started a new diet, there’s always the possibility that it’s related to that, but if it is something nasty, you want to catch it fast.
My right leg has swelled up substantially since Dec 31, and am only starting to get relief now.
I have a disease called sarcoidosis, an auto immune disorder, and one of the mysteries of this disease is an unexplained swelling of the leg / foot for me.
My doctor was so baffled by it, he put me on a treatment of 6o Mg of Prednisone for 10 days, and then I slowly reduce by 5MG each day until it is complete.
So far the swelling has reduced dramatically, and I hope once the treatment stops, it won’t come back.
Please go get checked by the doctor, there’s a reason for everything, and hopefully it’s something that will be an easy fix.
Well, hon, you asked a bunch of someones and they’ve all told you the same thing - get this checked out pronto.
In the past you may have been “a healthy 36-year old with no history of anything” but that has just changed. You have acquired “history”. Do not argue, do not surf the Web, go to a doctor for a complete physical exam. This is NOT normal for a “a healthy 36-year old with no history of anything”, is that clear?
I will not freak you out with speculation - there are many things this could be, from mundane to life-threatening. You MUST have this checked out in person by a professional.
A couple of months ago I was at work and looked down and noticed my legs were swelling from my ankles up. I had been urinating all day. I went to the doctor and he immediately sent me to the hospital. I gained 30 lbs in 3 hours. They ran all sorts of tests at the hospital but never did figure out what happened. It hasn’t happened any more but it sure scared me and I’m a firm believer that something had to have caused that. I still wonder what happened that day.
I realize it’s a zombie, but I’m curious to hear the explanation for it. I went to the doctor about two months ago for a swollen left lower leg, he said infection, gave me antibiotics, and on a couple of followup visits, he said it was fine, then eventually relented and gave me a dermatologist referral.
Dermatologist: “:dubious::eek:”
Went and had a test done that afternoon, no DVT, supposed to follow up this week.
In the meantime, I propped the end of my bed (memory foam, so it bends) up by about a foot and it made a humongous difference last night.
I have this too. Have not seen how it manifests itself with me. It was found in a cat scan when the er doc was looking for blod clots in my lungs a few years ago and thought it might be cancer.
Was told it was ‘a disease most often found in olive skinned women.’ My blonde haired blue eyed nordic self does wonder about that.
… wait
just read to the end …
AHHHHHHHH I HATE ZOMBIES
(but not enough to delete my response. Perfectly good typing here, not going to waste…)
Well given that she was last active here at the end of 2008, don’t hold your hopes up for an answer. But since that was four and a half years after the first post, I guess we can assume it wasn’t one of the more appalling possibilities. Unless she became one of the early zombies…
I had swollen feet for some months, and last month I casually mentioned it while seeing my doctor for another reason. I exited his office with prescriptions for chest X-rays, blood tests, abdominal echography, venous Doppler. Everything turned up to be fine which still doesn’t please my doc, since he thinks that at my age I shouldn’t have lower limbs edema for no reason at all (I guess docs don’t like “things that happen for no reason” in general), and he wants me to do a deeper investigation of my vascular system at the hospital and more blood tests.
Unbestknown to me, swollen feet might be a symptom of numerous severe ailments, including kidneys failure, cardiac dysfunction, liver cancer and whatnot. It can also be the mere result of a slight problem with the leg veins. But given the look and reaction of my doctor when I told him I have had that for several months, it’s definitely not something you should ignore.