IgA Nephropathy: Swollen Feet and Ankles

Swollen feet, ankles, feet and hands are very common among IgA nephropathy patients and it is due to fluid retention in the patient’s body. This will become more serious and obvious with continuous illness progression and gradual loss of kidney functions.

IgA nephropathy is an auto-immune disease and it is renal impairment caused by deposits of immunoglobulin A in the glomeruli. This will damage the glomerular basement membrane and affect the normal renal filtrating system. As a result, excessive water and wastes in the blood can not be filtered outside of the body and swollen feet and ankles will develop. On the other hand, many useful substances will pass through the basement membrane and leak into urine, resulting in proteinuria, hematuria, etc. The loss of excess proteins in urine will further worsen the swelling.

Treatments for relieving swollen feet and ankles should consist of 2 aspects---removing excessive fluid retention in the body and reducing protein leakage in urine so as to increase plasma osmotic pressure.

Diuretics and diet restrictions to limit the intake of water and salt can help ease swellings in the feet, ankles and hands. It is recommended that daily water intake should the the daily urine volume plus 500ml for swelling patients. If the swelling persists or continues to become worse, water intake should be less.

As for controlling proteinuria, steroids is effective. Besides, well control of high blood pressure can help significantly slow down illness progression and protect residual kidney functions.

Since proteinuria, swollen feet and ankles are not the only symptom of IgA nephropathy, other medicines and drugs are needed to deal with other problems such as high blood pressure, infections, etc.

For IgA nephropathy patients, at present there are already many treatment options such as medications, dietary therapy, control cholesterol, fish oil, tonsillectomy, dialysis and kidney transplant, but you may not have heard about immunotherapy before. It is a new therapy that has been proved to be effective for IgA nephropathy and other auto-immune diseases.

For more detailed information about immunotherapy for treating immunotherapy, welcome to consult our online doctors or leave us a message.