What causes edema in women

There are many reasons for edema in women, including bad living habits and diseases. Bad living habits mainly include standing for long periods of time and wearing high heels, which often lead to poor blood circulation and edema. In addition, some women, if drinking too much water, often suffer from edema symptoms. Of course, some disease causes cannot be ignored, the most common ones are heart disease and kidney disease.

The swollen area indicates the location of the disease

Different locations and characteristics of edema often indicate different causes. The edema characteristics of some diseases are obvious and should be detected early.

Now, stand in front of the mirror and find out where you are swollen with me to understand your physical condition.

1. If you have puffy eyes when you wake up in the morning, check your kidneys

Wake up in the morning with puffy eyes

Symptoms: If you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and find that you have puffy eyes, and you didn’t drink much water the night before, you should be careful about kidney problems.

Renal edema is mostly pitting edema. Simply put, if this area is swollen, there will be a pit when pressing it, and it will take a while to recover. It is common in the face and lower limbs, often starting from the face (especially the eyelids), accompanied by small urine volume and high urine protein.

Cause: Common in kidney diseases, such as chronic nephritis, pyelonephritis, diabetic nephropathy, renal failure, etc.

2. Swollen feet and easy fatigue: may be caused by heart problems

Swollen feet and easy fatigue

Symptoms: Cardiogenic edema mainly manifests as lower limb edema, often starting from the ankles. When combined with kidney disease, edema may also occur on the eyelids and face. At this time, there are often symptoms such as difficulty breathing, palpitations, fatigue after activity, enlarged liver, and thickening of neck veins. Examination of the heart may reveal pathological changes such as organic murmurs and heart enlargement.

Cause: The most common cause of cardiogenic edema is heart failure, which is more common in patients with right heart failure. Cardiomyopathy, hyperthyroid tachycardia, heart failure after myocardial infarction due to coronary heart disease, cardiorenal syndrome, etc. may all cause this problem.

3. Edema of face and limbs: Check your thyroid gland

Symptoms: Hypothyroidism edema often appears on the eyelids, cheeks, and limbs, manifesting as myxedema, that is, non-pitting edema. This type of edema is relatively solid and it is not easy to press out obvious depressions.

Cause: This symptom may occur due to endocrine system diseases such as hypothyroidism (abbreviated as "hypothyroidism"), excessive secretion of adrenal hormones, and hyperaldosteronism. Among them, hypothyroidism edema is more common.

4. Edema in the lower limbs, spreading upwards: The liver may be sick

Symptoms: When the liver's ability to synthesize plasma protein is reduced, it will cause pitting edema and ascites in the lower limbs. This edema will also spread from the lower limbs upward, but edema often does not occur in the head, face, and upper limbs.

Cause: Chronic hepatitis, severe hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer and other diseases may cause hepatic edema.

5. First weight loss, then edema: It may be malnutrition

Symptoms: If edema is preceded by emaciation and weight loss, and the edema starts in the feet and gradually spreads to the whole body, it is likely that the edema is caused by malnutrition.

Weight loss before edema

Cause: People with long-term diarrhea, poor food intake, decreased digestive function or chronic diseases often suffer from malnutrition. If the body's expenditure is less than its intake for a long time, edema may occur due to a decrease in plasma protein and a decrease in colloid osmotic pressure.

6. Obesity, and edema related to menstruation: idiopathic edema

Symptoms: This type of edema often appears in the feet and mainly occurs in middle-aged women, about half of whom have mild to moderate obesity. The patient's edema often changes with the menstrual cycle. Mild edema will appear in the eyelids, ankles and hands 7-14 days before menstruation, and gradually subside after menstruation.

This type of edema will occur after standing for a long time or being tired, and will gradually disappear after lying down or resting.

Cause: It is currently believed that it may be related to neuroendocrine metabolic dysfunction and abnormal estrogen secretion leading to premenstrual tension syndrome; some people also believe that it is caused by water and sodium retention after standing for a long time, causing edema, which improves after lying down. This type of edema has little impact on the body and generally does not require medication.

It should be noted that the connection between the above edema and diseases requires doctors to combine other examinations and diagnoses. The occurrence of edema does not necessarily mean that you are sick. Unhealthy lifestyles may also cause edema.