Swollen Feet

Warm/Hot epsom salt soaks should help.

S.

Hello A.,

Congratulations on your January surprise! I hope you're feeling better. How eating more bananas (increase your potassium intake to balance out the sodium). Beets and cucumber are natural diuretics.

is it possible that the prenatal vitamins you're taking are not helping the situation? I'd try different vitamins.

Talk to your doctor. you may need a 'kidney friendly diet' so monintor your protein, potassium, sodium and phosphorus intake. http://kidneydiettips.davitablogs.com/?cat=5

look closely at what you're eating and see if there are hidden sources of sodium. if you drink soda... try a sodium free soda from sprouts or whole foods. let me tell you something... eating tomatos and spinach can make my feet hurt like the dickens... so maybe night shade foods are affecting you. so skip the tomatoes, spinach, eggplant and potatoes for a couple of days and see how you feel. It's worth a try!

also, your feet need more support. other questions come to mind, like are you getting enough magnesium and other minerals.

get a stool and sit at the kitchen table and put your feet on the stool.

at the couch... put the stool far enough from the couch so cars, train tracks, etc can go by and make it a 'tunnel' and because of construction regulations cars, trains, etc can go under the tunnel but not on it or over it...make it a game. I know at this point you've probably tried a million things. I hope this helps. Good luck and hang in there! ~C.~

I totally feel your pain. I was like that when I was prego 5 years ago! I was fortunate that it was during the summer so I could wear flip flops everywhere and didn't have to worry about closed in shoes. Mine got so big, I even broke flip flops! Oh and yes they did ache! Mine got so big that the skin between my toes split! Hopefully you won't get to that point.

My #1 tip is to eat as little sodium as you can. Watch everything that you put in your mouth as far as sodium goes. I could tell a huge difference if we ate out or I made something quick like frozen pizza or HB Helper vs. if I prepared food from scratch. I also had to cut back on my beloved Caff-Free Dr Pepper because of the sodium!

Do put your feet up as much as possible and at night, sleep with them propped up (I think I used 2 pillows). If you can start the morning off with them not as swollen, I found that they did better through out the day.

Best of luck and congrats on the new baby!

I had the exact same problem, but it was my first, so I didn't have kids to chase around:) Drinking more water helped a little. Cutting down on sodium will definitely help....but I craved salt, so that lasted about 2 hours! I wrapped my feet everynight with sports wrap and that helped a lot. And, if you're wearing slippers anyway, you might as well wrap them during the day too:), but definitely unwrap them for a few hours a day. Hope this helps!

My feet went up 3 sizes when I was PG - just from being so swollen - I totally sympathize with you! Try to cut out as much salt as you can - I never realized how much sodium eveything has until I had to cut it out - some cereals are even high in sodium! I also iced mine somenights to try to get the swelling down and relieve some of the pain! Hope it helps!

Ask your doctor if you can take a water pill like Diurex - they sell these at CVS and most pharmacies. Might help a little bit.