Edema is swelling caused by excess fluid trapped in your body's tissues. Although edema can affect any part of your body, you may notice it more in your hands, arms, feet, ankles and legs.
Edema can be the result of medication, pregnancy or an underlying disease ? often congestive heart failure, kidney disease or cirrhosis of the liver.
Taking medication to remove excess fluid and reducing the amount of salt in your food often relieves edema. When edema is a sign of an underlying disease, the disease itself requires separate treatment. "Edema"is the medical term for swelling. Body parts swell from injury or inflammation. It can affect a small area or the entire body. Medications, pregnancy, infections, and many other medical problems can cause edema.
Edema happens when your small blood vessels leak fluid into nearby tissues. That extra fluid builds up, which makes the tissue swell. It can happen almost anywhere in the body. Edema is swelling that occurs when too much fluid becomes trapped in the tissues of the body, particularly the skin.
Peripheral edema. This usually affects the legs, feet, and ankles, but it can also happen in the arms. It could be a sign of problems with your circulatory system, lymph nodes, or kidneys.
Pedal edema. This happens when fluid gathers in your feet and lower legs. It?s more common if you?re older or pregnant. It can make it harder to move around in part because you may not have as much feeling in your feet.
Lymphedema. This swelling in the arms and legs is most often caused by damage to your lymph nodes, tissues that help filter germs and waste from your body. The damage may be the result of cancer treatments like surgery and radiation. The cancer itself can also block lymph nodes and lead to fluid buildup.
Pulmonary edema. When fluid collects in the air sacs in your lungs, you have pulmonary edema. That makes it hard for you to breathe, and it?s worse when you lie down. You may have a fast heartbeat, feel suffocated, and cough up a foamy spittle, sometimes with blood. If it happens suddenly, call 911.
Cerebral edema. This is a very serious condition in which fluid builds up in the brain. It can happen if you hit your head hard, if a blood vessel gets blocked or bursts, or you have a tumor or allergic reaction.
Macular edema. This happens when fluid builds up in a part of your eye called the macula, which is in the center of the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. It happens when damaged blood vessels in the retina leak fluid into the area.
Inflammation is part of the body?s defense mechanism and plays a role in the healing process.
When the body detects an intruder, it launches a biological response to try to remove it.
The attacker could be a foreign body, such as a thorn, an irritant, or a pathogen. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, and other organisms, which cause infections.
Sometimes, the body mistakenly perceives its own cells or tissues as harmful. This reaction can lead to autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.
Experts believe inflammation may contribute to a wide range of chronic diseases. Examples of these are metabolic syndrome, which includes type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
People with these conditions often have higher levels of inflammatory markers in their bodies.
Inflammatory disorders include Henoch-Schonlein purpura and the vasculitis that occurs with paraproteins or cryoglobulins or in patients with systemic lupus erythematosis or other immune disorders.
Inflammation is a process by which your body's white blood cells and the things they make protect you from infection from outside invaders, such as bacteria and viruses.
But in some diseases, like arthritis, your body's defense system -- your immune system -- triggers inflammation when there are no invaders to fight off. In these autoimmune diseases, your immune system acts as if regular tissues are infected or somehow unusual, causing damage.
Red blood cells carry oxygen to all parts of your body. They also remove carbon dioxide (a waste product) from your body's cells and carry it to the lungs to be exhaled.
Red blood cells are made in your bone marrow?a sponge-like tissue inside the bones. White blood cells and platelets (PLATE-lets) also are made in your bone marrow. White blood cells help fight infection. Platelets stick together to seal small cuts or breaks on blood vessel walls and stop bleeding.
If you have PV, your bone marrow makes too many red blood cells. It also can make too many white blood cells and platelets.
A mutation, or change, in the body's JAK2 gene is the major cause of PV. This gene makes a protein that helps the body produce blood cells. What causes the change in the JAK2 gene isn't known. PV generally isn't inherited?that is, passed from parents to children through genes.
PV develops slowly and may not cause symptoms for years. The disease often is found during routine blood tests done for other reasons.
When signs and symptoms are present, they're the result of the thick blood that occurs with PV. This thickness slows the flow of oxygen-rich blood to all parts of your body. Without enough oxygen, many parts of your body won't work normally.
For example, slower blood flow deprives your arms, legs, lungs, and eyes of the oxygen they need. This can cause headaches, dizziness, itching, and vision problems, such as blurred or double vision.
Arthritis is the swelling and tenderness of one or more of your joints. The main symptoms of arthritis are joint pain and stiffness, which typically worsen with age. The most common types of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Osteoarthritis causes cartilage ? the hard, slippery tissue that covers the ends of bones where they form a joint ? to break down. Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system attacks the joints, beginning with the lining of joints.
Uric acid crystals, which form when there's too much uric acid in your blood, can cause gout. Infections or underlying disease, such as psoriasis or lupus, can cause other types of arthritis.
Treatments vary depending on the type of arthritis. The main goals of arthritis treatments are to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.
