Help! My feet are swelling!

newbies
#3

Thank you!

(Liz ) #4

Are you getting enough salt? If you are truly in ketosis your body will shed salt more than when you are a carb burner & being low on salt, I believe I read somewhere, can make you retain water. Anyway, something to think about. Sorry I do t have a reference.

#5

I read that, too, and thought that it might have something to do with my low energy. I started adding lots of salt about 2 weeks ago, and have been feeling a little better. Might be just coincidence, though.

In any case, the blood test showed my sodium level to be normal.

(Liz ) #6

Salt is everything in a Keto way of eating! We really flush it out constantly. So it’s possible even though you increased it & tested well you still aren’t getting enough. 4-5 mg a day is recommended. Anyway, I hope you get relief!

(VLC.MD) #7

The swelling is likely temporary.

Significant fluid retention in the legs will cause your weight to increase … i’m sure you would have noticed that … so I’d think your fluid retention is not significant from a health standpoint.

if your legs are much improved in the morning then the problem is veins, likely varicose veins that some people get as time rolls on.

Putting your feet up and compression stockings can help if the fluid becomes more of an issue.

Walking and cooler weather help.

#8

Are you eating enough protein with enough of a variety of necessary amino acids in it? Cronometer, com provides a good breakdown of the amino acides in your food so you know if you are getting enough of each type. There is a Low Carb Leader Podcast that has an interview with a couple who are paleo/keto vegans. What about Tofu?

Honestly, have not encountered this before, good luck finding a solution

#9

May I suggest you look up “What is Lymphedema?”
This maybe the cause of the swelling in your legs and will offer the advice you need to cure the problem.

(Todd Allen) #10

The blood test for sodium by itself means little. With low sodium intake you can maintain normal serum sodium concentration by losing water and blood volume which is very unhealthy and leads to the symptoms of keto flu such as fatigue.

As for the swelling it might be aggravated by the reduction in exercise. Fluid collected by the lymph system depends more on skeletal muscle contraction to drive it back out of the legs. Through a combination of factors I managed to swell my feet up like sausages. I was using a standing desk for many hours a day (lots of great reasons for doing so) and was taking nightly extremely hot baths (lots of great reasons for doing so). Then I tore cartilage in my left knee and had to stop walking for 3 weeks. In the first week I continued the baths and standing desk on crutches and my feet, ankles and legs painfully swelled with excess fluid and I gained 15 lbs. I stopped using the standing desk and the swelling slowed dramatically, then I stopped the baths and it reversed. After my knee healed sufficiently to resume exercising I was able to also resume the other practices without any swelling.

#11

Try some compression socks. I have a pair I wear for foot cramping at night and they are awesome!

#12

This is intended as reply to all of the posts on this thread. Sorry if it doesn’t work out that way; I’m still learning the technicalities of using this forum.

First, I’d just like to say that I’m humbled that so many people have taken the time and effort to help me with this. Thank you.

I met with a nutritionist, today. We went over everything I had been eating, and calculated that I’ve only been getting about 30 grams of protein a day! That definitely changed my perspective on the situation. She advised that I more than double my protein intake, which I’ll do right away, with protein powder.

She said that the body stores protein, and mine may have used up its store, which is why symptoms showed up only recently. So, hopefully, more than doubling my protein will make my foot swelling go away, although she said that it may take a few weeks.

“Lee2Keto,” I looked up lymphedema, and, as “brownfat” pointed out in the post after yours, the fact that I had drastically reduced my exercise definitely points to that. I hope not, because the photos I found of where lymphedema can lead were horrifying. Scary would be an understatement.

I brought up lymphedema with the nutritionist, and she basically said that low protein intake seems like the more obvious cause for my low blood proteins, which, she agreed with my doctor, is likely to be the immediate cause of my foot swelling. She said that since increasing my protein intake won’t hurt even if I do have poor lymph circulation, I should try that, anyway.

I had been thinking that the problem wasn’t that I was getting too little protein, but rather, that my body was turning it all into glucose. At 30g/day, though, that now seems very unlikely. The nutritionist also said that the body will use up all of the dietary fat that it gets before starting to turn protein into glucose.

Once again, thank you, everyone!

Swollen hands and ankles
#13

Sorry for the late update, but I started consuming more protein, and my foot swelling went away after about a month.

(Whisperingsage) #14

I’m a nurse. Your doctor is right. Protein deficiency. Lucky your doctor was right. They aren’t usually too astute in nutrition as that’s not their training. You’re lucky he didn’t put you on lasix to flush your fluid. It doesn’t help much if there is a protein deficiency. Lasix will flush all your important electrolytes, not just sodium. Magnesium, potassium, calcium, chloride, and probably more. This can cause tremors and worse. These minerals are profoundly important for your heart and muscle function.
Did your doc tell you to at least get some eggs and cheese into your diet? And you just didn’t tell us? He should have. If you continue like this it could kill you eventually.

First, understand I did my vegan stint when I was in my 20’s. That didn’t go well.
Now I raise my own chickens, rabbits, goats, etc fir meat milk and eggs, and am grass feeding them on top of their complete feeds and supplements. In the 1940’s, US soils were 40% depleted of minerals. In the 1990’s our souls were 85% depleted. Unless you are growing your own on composted soil adding plenty of dolomite(calcium/magnesium) and limestone ( calcium and 60 other trace minerals) then don’t bet you are able to get all your needed nutrients. Please listen to this doc, he’s interesting and amusing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ARB73jV4mro. But most of all he’s right. He has lots on YouTube, Somebody Needs to go To Jail is a good one. Dead Athletes Don’t Lie is another. He wrote the most complete vet manual of 2000 pages. It’s kept in the biggest university libraries. He discovered selenium deficiency causes cystic fibrosis. And keshans disease. And cardiomyopathy. And muscular dystrophy. He’s sued the FDA 8 times for the right to make nutritional claims that cures diseases. And won. He’s a pathologist having done 26,000 autopsies on many species of animals and 3000 on humans. He insists after all this that all diseases are nutritional diseases. He write Epigenetics and Rare Earth’s, Forbidden Cures, and several others. He covers the less known minerals, limestone has them, shale has more but isn’t easy to find . There are 10 centenarian cultures in the world, they all get 60 to 72 minerals in their glacial melt and use it on their gardens and they and their livestock drink this abdceatvthise crops. And they all are meat eaters. Sorry, but there are no vegan 100 year olds. The verify his claims I also would recommend Weston Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration free online also. He was a dentist in the 1890’s into the 1900’s and noticed a sudden change in his patients and their health. Not a good change. The 1890’ was the industrial revolution. Refined flour and sugar came on the scene. He did a 9 year worldwide study , on his own dime, to record what healthy people ate all over the world. There were still many healthy groups back then. He took pictures, recorded cavities, did interviews, chronicled foods and practices. Noted development. All the healthiest groups ate 80% if their calories as animal fats and proteins. Some ate 100% if their calories as animal. Those would be the cattle keeping tribes of Africa, there several then, they drank at least a gallon of raw high butterfat milk from cattle, goats and sheep each day, per person. And today the media tells us blacks are lactose intolerant. ( Dr Wallach also has a book and video called Black Gene Lies). There is a book called The Milk Book by William Douglass MD which explain the difference between raw, real milk from grass fed animals vs the super white milk in the store. Did you know real milk is yellow? Cows very yellow and goats light yellow.

If you are vegan because you don’t want to hurt animals, then go to a county Fair and neet people or look up online for local small farmers or goat keepers or Mennonites, and buy your eggs and milk or cheese or make your own yogurt from their products. People who are lactose intolerant often do fine with yogurt. But better, lactose intolerant labeled folks often do fine on raw dairy from animals on green growing pasture. If you make freinds with these people, and go to their home and see how their animals are kept, then you can Know when you have found humanely kept animals. My rabbits are outside on the ground in a large group in a large pen. They are social animals. They have cement covered boxes for kitting and protection. They do well in the snow. That’s their breeding season. I got my first few free from a Mennonite because they wouldn’t breed. He had them in a dark shed in battery cages. As soon as I set their carrying kennels into my pen and opened the doors they were breeding. And shortly, I had babies. The sun. They had been deprived of the sun and vitamin D production, in the skin needs the sun. And vitamin D deficiency can affect fertility. A lot of things can, but in this case it may have been just the D.
Same as vitamins being made by plants. If it’s not in the soil it won’t be in the plants. Plants can’t make minerals. They have to be in the soil. Selenium in the soil enables the plant to make vitamin E. No soil selenium, no vitamin E. So can you see how that can affect health? William Albrecht was the recent father of soil minerals. He’s the one that did the 1940 doil survey to see we were 40% deficient in soil minerals. He did a well known work with a farm that couldn’t raise and keep livestock to save their life. He discovered it was magnesium deficient soils. The animals are our teacher. They are the canary in the coal mine.

(Todd Allen) #15

Hi, I took a brief look at the video you recommended of Dr Joel Wallach (note Dr of naturopathy not Dr of medicine) and while he does have some good points he makes a lot of strong statements that are based on weak evidence or no evidence at all. It didn’t take long to find strong criticisms of his work and sales pitches.

http://www.skepdic.com/wallach.html
http://nutra-smart.net/al.htm

If one has a high tolerance for hucksterism my initial impression is that one might do better following Dr. Mercola.

#16

Whispering Sage, thank you for such a long and thoughtful reply. Let me just emphasize, first, that my foot swelling is now long gone. It went away after I started consuming a lot more protein at the advice of my doctor and people in this forum. It’s fortunate that I got such good advice.

I’ve had several blood panels since my first post in which everything was within normal ranges. I don’t mean to imply from that that I’m the picture of perfect health; it just means that the things that the lab measured in my blood were within normal ranges—no more, no less.

Regarding the long-term effects of a vegan diet, I should first say that I’m no nutrition expert. As far as ethics, however, your “county fair” idea is a possibility, but knowing what I know about the way that animals are treated on factory farms in order to produce eggs and cheese, there’s hardly any way that I could justify supporting those things for the rest of my life. If I tried, then my own life wouldn’t make sense to me. Supporting those things may make sense to other people, but that’s their affair, not mine. I’m not them, and what works for them, all things considered, won’t necessarily work for me.

As for me, even IF being vegan for the rest of my life would shorten it, even then, considering how it would make me feel about myself, it would still be in my own self interest to live a shorter life, while doing less harm, than it would be to live a longer, (in my opinion) less ethical life. For others, the opposite may be true. Like I said, that’s their affair. What works for them, all things considered, won’t necessarily work for me.

To put it another, slightly different way, even if I could be assured that being vegan would cause nutrient deficiencies that would reduce my health and shorten my life, it would still be in my own best interest to live a shorter life that harmed others less, than it would to live a longer life that hurt others more. I don’t expect that to make sense to everyone, but that’s okay.

#17

Are you drinking enough water? Usually swollen ankles makes me think “too much sodium” but that shouldn’t be an issue with keto. Do you have high blood pressure?

#18

Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease, you cannot get it from Selenium deficiency.

Here is a article that questions Dr. Wallach

https://abreathofreason.com/tag/selenium/

With regard to the original question, and the vegan morality, you may want to listen to this podcast from a former vegan. She was also involved in the moral issue and what she found was even when she raised her own plants, she still had to use animal products to fertilize her plants and give them nutrients to grow http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1583/20-year-vegan-lierre-keith-advocates-omnivorism-episode-334/

Interestingly while I always dabbled in organic and grass fed, going keto has made me more aware of my responsibility to my food. While I am not completely organic, I am more than horrified by the feedlot conditions and try more than ever to go free range and organic when I can. Free range eggs are very easy to get these days and coming down in price significantly

#19

At the risk of sounding rude, I’m not going to respond to questions that I’ve already addressed.

(Jay AM) #20

Sometimes old threads get dredged up and some people don’t pay attention to the date of the original post. I understand your feelings on vegan. I was vegan for a long time but, I was never unhealthier than as a vegan. I did it for ethical reasons too. After I was hospitalized for an emergency gallbladder removal, I couldn’t be vegan anymore. I was fat and always sick. Year one was okay but it went downhill after that. So, my eventual choice was to buy humane local meats, eggs, etc. Pastured chickens, grass fed humane beef and pork. If you ever do run into my situation of losing health after some time, there are friendly options to go back to.

(Lynda Yates) #21

I found this all very useful. I did intermittent fasting on a 20:4 eating window and also water fasted twice for 5 days in Nov. New Year’s Day I began a long 21-day water fast. My doctor didn’t like that and on the evening of Day 20 when I was nearly finished my feet and ankles swelled dramatically. I broke my fast the next day and put it down to electrolyte issues plus sitting down for many hours.
The swelling went away. I lost 20 kg which put me at almost normal BMI for the first time in 30 years after being just into the obese range most of that time. Then I looked at the keto diet for weight maintenance but thought 75% fat seemed way too high so I have been trying the whole food plant-based diet as that sounded healthier.
However, I have had swelling in my feet and a bloated stomach for the last two weeks plus I seem to be eating an awful lot all the time! As I have only been trying it a while I thought my body might need to get used to it but I am not so sure reading this. There does seem to be good scientific evidence that a lot of saturated fat or a diet higher than 20% fat will not be good for you especially if you have high cholesterol like me (although I accept cholesterol may just indicate inflammation, not itself be an issue). Anyway, I will try eating more legumes and eggs. Although vegetarian before, I do still eat free-range eggs despite the diet saying you should go vegan.

(Irene Renteria) #22

Since starting Keto, I have gained 10 pounds and have experienced significant swelling in my legs primarily, and sometimes my hands and face swell to. I am going to try and increase my protein to see if that helps. I am glad you posted this. I have been looking for information and have found none until now.