What Is The Treatment For Extremely Swollen Legs,feet And Ankles When On BP And Arthritis Medication?

Posted on Tue, 24 Dec 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 Answered on

Sat, 11 Jan 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : My mother is 86 years old and has suffered from extremely swollen legs, feet and ankles for years. It is getting worse and worse. She can now barely walk. She takes meds for high blood pressure: metoprolol (50MG 1/2 pill 2x a day), lipitor (10 MG 1x a day), hydrochlorothiazide (25 MG 1x a day), spironolactone (25 MG 1/2 pill a day), and Tylenol for Arthritis pain (650 MG 4x a day). Her doctor does not seem to be able to get this under control. Can you help? I have pictures of her feet to show how swollen they are. It's scaring me, it's that bad.

Answered by Dr. Robert Galamaga (45 minutes later)

Brief Answer: Followup Detailed Answer: hello and thank you for sending the question. I can appreciate that you are dealing with a very stressful situation. At this point I have a couple of considerations. I would like you to pay attention to how much liquid your mother consumes on a daily basis. You want to limit the total amount of fluid that she consumes to know more than 2 L in 24 hours. I think your doctors would agree but this is something you should also review with them before proceeding. it is possible that she has a significant amount of fluid retention and limiting the total quantity of water that she consumes on a daily basis can sometimes help slowly improve symptoms. Also she should elevate her legs as much as possible and consider wearing some compression stockings. The compression stockings will help her body remove some of the fluid through her veins. these compression stockings can be purchased a local pharmacy. I would recommend that you talk to her doctors first and possibly obtain a prescription for an appropriate level of compression. Thanks again for sharing your health care concern. I hope these bits of advice have proved to be helpful. If you have additional concerns we would be happy to discuss those here. Dr. Galamaga

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar