{"id":150,"date":"2021-01-27T21:33:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T21:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heartfailurematters.local:8888\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/"},"modified":"2024-06-05T00:07:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T23:07:09","slug":"increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/","title":{"rendered":"Increased swelling of the legs or ankles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Swelling in the legs and ankles is caused by fluid accumulation in the body, which can be a sign of worsening heart failure. You may feel that your shoes are tighter than normal if swelling in this area is increasing.<\/p>\n<p>The fluid build-up is due to reduced blood flow out of the heart, causing blood returning to the heart through the veins to back up. This leads to fluid accumulation in the abdomen and lower limbs and <a class=\"addtooltip\" title=\"An excess of fluid in a part of the body.\"><strong>congestion<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You are more likely to notice swelling in your legs and ankles later in the day because gravity increases the amount and pressure of blood in the veins of the lower limbs. Lying down and resting for a period will usually reduce the swelling.<\/p>\n<p>Another typical symptom indicating congestion is increasing dyspnea while bending over. This is also called \u201ebendopnea\u201c. If it occurs this is a warning sign, if it fades, this is a sign of improvement and effective therapy.<\/p>\n<p>If you notice an increase in the swelling in your legs and ankles and it\u2019s progressively getting worse, you should contact your doctor or nurse. An adjustment of your diuretic medicines is usually enough to reduce the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swelling in the legs and ankles is caused by fluid accumulation in the body, which can be a sign of worsening heart failure. You may feel that your shoes are tighter than normal if swelling in this area is increasing. The fluid build-up is due to reduced blood flow out of the heart, causing blood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11209,"parent":2860,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-warning-signs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Swelling of Legs or Ankles &amp; Heart Failure<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swelling of Legs or Ankles &amp; Heart Failure\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Heart Failure Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartfailurematters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-06-04T23:07:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/\",\"name\":\"Swelling of Legs or Ankles & Heart Failure\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-27T21:33:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-06-04T23:07:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg\",\"width\":900,\"height\":600},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Warning signs\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Increased swelling of the legs or ankles\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/\",\"name\":\"Heart Failure Matters\",\"description\":\"Practical information for patients, families and caregivers.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Heart Failure Matters\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2024\/07\/hfm-logo1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2024\/07\/hfm-logo1.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Heart Failure Matters\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartfailurematters\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Swelling of Legs or Ankles & Heart Failure","description":"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Swelling of Legs or Ankles & Heart Failure","og_description":"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here","og_url":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/","og_site_name":"Heart Failure Matters","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartfailurematters","article_modified_time":"2024-06-04T23:07:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":900,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/","name":"Swelling of Legs or Ankles & Heart Failure","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg","datePublished":"2021-01-27T21:33:11+00:00","dateModified":"2024-06-04T23:07:09+00:00","description":"Swelling of the legs and ankles is caused by\u00a0fluid accumulation\u00a0in the body and could be a sign of worsening heart failure. Find out more here","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2022\/03\/shutterstock_1715702371-1-min.jpg","width":900,"height":600},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/increased-swelling-of-the-legs-or-ankles\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Warning signs","item":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/warning-signs\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Increased swelling of the legs or ankles"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/","name":"Heart Failure Matters","description":"Practical information for patients, families and caregivers.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#organization","name":"Heart Failure Matters","url":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2024\/07\/hfm-logo1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cdn-endpoint-hfm.azureedge.net\/heartfailurematters\/2024\/07\/hfm-logo1.jpg","width":1280,"height":720,"caption":"Heart Failure Matters"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartfailurematters"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13355,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/150\/revisions\/13355"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartfailurematters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}