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What Causes Severe Swelling In Lower Legs?
Question: my lower legs are swollen for past week becoming increasing more severe. I have appt next week but this goes into my feet and becoming more & more uncomfortable. I am questioning whether to go to ER of hospital for treatment. Friends have suggested possible thrombosis to me. I am looking for answerspp
Brief Answer:
investigation recommended
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
let me start from your main question. Although thrombosis is a consideration in cases with leg swelling, having thrombosis in both legs does not sound very likely. When a patient has bilateral leg swelling the most common conditions include heart failure, vein insufficiency, cirrhosis, renal problems (glomerulonephritis), low albumin states, etc.
Information for your medical history would be important to know. For example symptoms like shortness of breath, calf pain, severe worsening of hypertension, blood in the urine, dilated leg veins, etc are important symptoms which may reveal the diagnosis.
In patients like you I usually start with an ultrasound scan of the legs and depending on the data from the clinical examination I may proceed with a heart echo and blood/urine tests (urinalysis, complete blood count, urea, creatinine, electrolytes, albumin, globulins, etc).
So in conclusion, the most likely cause in patients without other symptoms is vein insufficiency but more serious causes cannot be excluded. You'd better visit a doctor as soon as possible. Having not examined you, I cannot say whether it's worth the trouble to visit the ER right now or not. The most likely answer is that it's not an emergency but I can't exclude a serious cause. Since there's doubt about it, you'd better do pay a visit to the doctor asap.
I hope you find my comments helpful!
You can contact me again, if you'd like any clarification or further information.
Kind Regards!
investigation recommended
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
let me start from your main question. Although thrombosis is a consideration in cases with leg swelling, having thrombosis in both legs does not sound very likely. When a patient has bilateral leg swelling the most common conditions include heart failure, vein insufficiency, cirrhosis, renal problems (glomerulonephritis), low albumin states, etc.
Information for your medical history would be important to know. For example symptoms like shortness of breath, calf pain, severe worsening of hypertension, blood in the urine, dilated leg veins, etc are important symptoms which may reveal the diagnosis.
In patients like you I usually start with an ultrasound scan of the legs and depending on the data from the clinical examination I may proceed with a heart echo and blood/urine tests (urinalysis, complete blood count, urea, creatinine, electrolytes, albumin, globulins, etc).
So in conclusion, the most likely cause in patients without other symptoms is vein insufficiency but more serious causes cannot be excluded. You'd better visit a doctor as soon as possible. Having not examined you, I cannot say whether it's worth the trouble to visit the ER right now or not. The most likely answer is that it's not an emergency but I can't exclude a serious cause. Since there's doubt about it, you'd better do pay a visit to the doctor asap.
I hope you find my comments helpful!
You can contact me again, if you'd like any clarification or further information.
Kind Regards!
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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