Diabetes kidney disease is prone to occur among people with a long history of diabetes like 5~20 years.Swelling is a typical sign of diabetes kidney disease.

What are the causes of swelling in diabetes kidney disease?

Low levels of albumin in blood

Proteins are important antibodies in body and the levels of proteins keep at a certain level in right condition.In addition, proteins are just like sponge and can absorb fluid to keep certain blood volume.However,in diabetes kidney disease,once the nephrons are impaired, a large amount of proteins will leak into urine. Low levels of proteins in urine will cause fluid in blood to infilter into subcutaneous tissues, thus resulting in swelling.

Retention of fluid and sodium

As the nephrons are impaired,the blood flow to kidneys will reduce.In response,the kidneys will produce much renin. Renin can stimulate the body to produce angiotensin.Renin and angiotensin can make adrenal cortex to produce more aldosterone.These two hormones can promote renal tubules to absorb more sodium.Increased sodium can absorb more fluid, thus resulting in swelling in diabetes kidney disease.

Swelling in diabetes often firstly occurs in legs and feet. However, if extremely high levels of fluid build in body, even lung will be flooded with fluid,resulting in pulmonary edema. Pulmonary edema can be very dangerous and even life-threatening.

In early stage of diabetes kidney disease,the patients experience no symptom.Serious swelling will occur once the proteinuria exceeds 3g/d which occurs when kidneys are impaired significantly.Therefore,serious swelling is an indicator of very severe kidney damage.

Serious swelling can affect the patients’ life quality and can worsen the diabetes kidney disease progression.Therefore, it is important for the patients to manage it aggressively. Restricted limitation of sodium in diet can help. However, treating kidney as a whole should be the fundamental treatment measure.