Sudden unexplained swelling, hands, feet, lip, wrists

Thank you. I will look into this as my swelling has came back with a vengeance

Mine started when I changed my birth control. Years later I was pregnant. Best 9 months ever. No swelling at all. the moment my daughter is taken out of me during C-section my feet immediately swelled up not the type of pregnancy swelling but the swelling that happens with all of us would be symptoms. years have passed and now it is back with a vengeance.

The thing is you can become allergic to things at any point in your life that you were never allergic to before, so don't assume that it's not something you have always used. Perhaps something in the manufacturing changed or your body might be reacting to a build-up of chemicals from things you have always used. Also, one thing I have to say that I have noticed for myself. I already have a thyroid issue, Hashimoto's as well as a stomach issue, atrophic autoimmune gastritis; anyway I can no longer use Chapstick or any lip balms that are not completely natural ingredients and I can no longer drink water that is in plastic bottles. If I do my tongue and lips swell and I lose the ability to taste things. It has been a year now since I first started having issues and stop using Chapstick or drinking out of plastic. I don't store my food in plastic or cook it in the microwave in plastic. I use a stainless steel water bottle and store and cook all my food in glass or metal pots and pans. It has actually made a difference.

Hello Everybody,

I have had Idiopathic Angiodema (unexplained swelling) for the past 9 years (lips, eyes, tongue, feet, fingers, etc.) and have become great friends with Prednisone (the only drug that has the ability to stop it). I am not allergic to anything and am classified as Autoimmune Allergy. This forum post has helped me along the way with my research and hearing from other people who experience similar activity. It was great to know that I am not alone. Anyways, I am still not clear of this, however, the Prednisone dose is at an all time low. I wanted to share here what I have discovered about this with the help of my amazing Allergist with hopes that maybe this post will assist somebody else along the way. We have recently discovered that there seems to be a significant decrease in my swelling activity when I keep my Vitamin D level up. It is being found that as much as 80% of the population has low Vitamin D, but in my case, I am discovering that it also affects my swelling frequency and severity. This is such an easy fix for us that I would think that it is definitely worth a try if you are suffering. A simple blood test checked my level and I was found to be low. The Doctor treated me with Prescription Vitamin D that I took once per week and knocked the level up. Some time passed and I started getting nailed again with the swelling activity. Checked my Vitamin D level again and it was low again. As soon as I started the Vitamin D again, I was doing much better. Anyways, good luck to you all and hopefully this information will help you along the way.

You all need to see an Allergist. I've been around many people with similar reactions and even been through it myself. I've seen 2 outcomes for this and the two most common were thyroid or allergies.

Hopefully I can help shed some light on this. I've also experienced this from time to time over the past ten years. Swelling in wrists and hands, ankles and feet, sometimes my knees, and once in a while I wake up with a swollen upper lip. Oftentimes the swelling is accompanied by itching and dryness.

Prior to all of this, over ten years ago, I had an extreme rash on both calves and on my lower arms. I was diagnosed with eczema at the time. I had the rash again the following year, but never again since.

However, since that time I started having these random swellings in various parts of my body. Usually one area at a time. Very rarely all at the same time. The doctor ruled out most of the 'common' causes for swelling, but wasn't able to give a clear diagnosis. Personally, I suspected that it might have some relation to the eczema.

Something I tried was taking antihistamines. I bought some generic over-the-counter Cetirizine Hydrochloride tablets. I took as recommended and it seemed to do the trick. I've noticed in my case, that often the swelling is proceeded by itching, or sometimes the swelling starts small, and usually this occurs late at night. If I do nothing about it, by morning the swelling is much worse. But if I catch it early by taking the antihistamine, it goes away. If I wait too long, the antihistamine still helps, but takes longer to reduce the swelling. If I do nothing at all, the swelling will only last a day or two before it goes on it's own.

All my research tells me that it may have something to do with the immune system. Here's what I mean. Generally these symptoms are allergic reactions. The thing about allergic reactions is that our immune system is responding to a perceived threat, even though generally it's nothing truly threatening. But the reaction produces antibodies which are sent to the area of the body to fight the perceived infection, and cause the area to become inflamed and/or swollen.

However, I've never been able to figure out what I might be allergic to. So I am left to assume that perhaps all of this is caused by some malfunction in this particular part of the immune system. It's as if the immune system is just randomly producing antibodies to protect against a threat that doesn't exist. In other words, it may not be a reaction to an actual allergen. It may just be a random misfiring of antibodies.

Honestly, I don't really know. I'm just speculating based on everything I've looked into over the years. In any case, it doesn't seem to be anything life-threatening, just a bit of a nuisance. As far as I can tell, there's still no known cause or cure. But it does seem to be manageable simply by taking antihistamines.

I hope this information helps.

have exactly the same issues with the tongue and throat being of the most concern doctors and blood test reveal nothing but a drained check book

Everything you guys are saying....the swelling of the lips, tongue, scrotum, bottom of feet......IT'S LATENT TUBERCULOSIS!!!

Go get tested! I'm willing to bet a lot of you are on an injectable shot to treat some sort of arthritis (like I am).

My mom is in memory care for Alzheimer's. She is swollen from her waist to her feet, thighs, and her stomach. Should I take her to ER?

35 year old male and I too experienced lip, tongue, feet, wrists, forearm, eye and hands swelling. I kept track of what I was eating and taking and what I found was when I took ibuprofen or Tylenol, that’s when the swelling started. I have stopped taking any pain meds and especially with NSAID. So far I’m over 2 weeks without any swelling whatsoever. Will see if it ever comes back but looking good so far. Hope this helps someone

I have also had pretty much all of the symptoms mentioned here, and currently can't figure out what is causing my angioedema and hives which is driving me crazy.
So last year September 2022 I painted my house spending nearly a week up and down a ladder. I had also finished a course of doxycycline antibiotics that same month to try and clear up a face rash that I had on my cheeks which ultimately made no difference. The face rash on my cheeks I have had since wearng a mask during the covid pandemic. Doctor suspects it's rosacea but not confirmed by a dermatologist.

Anyway two week after finishing the course of antibiotics and painting my house I started to get painful swollen feet like I was walking on pebbles or something. My feet would get very swollen sometimes and then go down after a day or two for a few days or a week then flare up again. Also sometimes the pain and swelling would move around the sole of the foot or feet throughout the day, even from one foot to the other. I put this down to being up the ladder painting as it was rather tiring and I don't spend much time up ladders usually. In November I went to see a podiatrist as the swelling was still coming and going with burning itchy sensations mostly of an evening time. Sometimes I'd get the itchy red burn only and other times I'd have swelling also. I explained to the pediatrist the situation and after inspecting my feet which weren't swollen at the time she said oh sounds like you have plantafachiitis and a fungal infection so I was told to do some feet exercises and put on a cream for three months. I applied the cream as instructed and carried out the exercises to stretch my feet.

A couple of weeks after seeing the podiatrist I was at work one day and noticed a red rash on my wrists which spread onto my hands near the thumb. it was red inflamed and slightly itchy but nothing too bad at the time. This cleared after a couple days and I didn't really think too much of it. I'm also still getting my feet swell up at least once a week during this time but still made no connection between the two.

Come April 2023 and my feet are still swelling up around once every week or two and my hands have now become more swollen like a puffed up glove. I started to realise itchy burn in my feet is just like my hands now. Then later in April I woke up early hours of the morning with a swollen tongue which was very uncomfortable to the say the least. I could barely speak or drink water but lucky enough my breathing was fine. It took a whole day for my tongue to go down and it remained sore for a couple of days. After the tongue swelling I was getting different swellings almost daily. It went from feet and hands, to tongue, lips, eyes, eyelids, genitals, ear, sides of my nose. Finger tips, fingers, wrists, chin and throat ,(lucky enough the throat swelling although uncomfortable didnt affect my breathing). It even felt like my wrist joints were swollen at one point, not just the skin.

So I ended up getting a full blood count done from my GP and they also done X-rays on my lungs and hands. They couldn't find one thing wrong with me. They checked for autoimmune diseases, kidney, liver, thyroid, diabetes, vitamin levels etc. I was prescribed faxofenidine and got given the we don't know what to do shoulder shrug and was told I would be referred to an allergy specialist which could take a YEAR! So I went away while still suffering symptoms daily. Around this time I also started getting hives appearing all over my body. Some very itchy while others not so much. These would come and go daily, sometimes remaining for a couple days and others going away same day.

I had a second tongue swelling the following week and went to A&E as I was told to if my lips or tongue swell incase my breathing does become laboured. The hospital also did a full blood test and did another chest X-ray. After a good chat with the doctor they also came to the conclusion that they really don't know the cause and all the tests they did have come back fine. So they prescribed me prednisolone steroids tablets for a week and gave me more fexofenidine. My GP also in the meantime put me on montekulast which is an asthma tablet to try and prevent any breathing problems that my appear. I took the steroids for one week only as instructed and the on the last few days my hives gradually faded and no present swellings. Three days after finishing the steroids and the hives came creeping back. Started off as small red dots and gradually got bigger the next day.

As we speak I have not had swelling for one week but the hives are back and I'm also feeling like I'm back at square one again. I'm currently looking into seeing a private allergy specialist. I'm also still taking fexofendine, loretadine and the montekulust medication daily.

I have also tried cutting out wheat, dairy and sugary processed foods. This did seem to help little with my face rash but other than that there was no real noticeable difference although I'm still experimenting all the time. I hope everyone here finds out what is the root cause of this is and did anyone find out?

Thank you for your reply and I really appreciate you reading my long post.

Unfortunately I'm still suffering with the hives daily and trying my best to keep going, but of course I'm a bit up and down. I'll go from not worrying for a few days to panicking that I have hiv or something, even though I've got a negative test result for hiv/aids.

I'm still waiting to see a specialist which is planned for next month as they are really busy. I'll see what they say, and when I get some answers I will post them on here.