Are My Legs Too Fat?

Ok, please don’t take this personally but I have some rather LARGE legs right now. No it isn’t from pumping iron or doing more leg squats than a catcher in baseball. Now that I am back in trying to be compliant with my care, I’ve been noticing the weight gain that insulin brings (at least for me). When you are injecting as much as 60 units of N and 5-24 units of R, I had to wonder if I was just getting the edema from that. Then I did some fact checking about the other medicines I am taking (Avapro, lisinopril, and Lipitor). All of them show possible side effects but don’t mention swelling (unless it sounds life threatening). ANOTHER FRUSTRATION in the life of a non-compliant then compliant then waivering diabetic. Sorry I guess Mitt Romney and I share the waffling effect, but I digress.

It’s hard some days to sit between 6-8 hours, work on a computer, and try to get up and move around. But I push myself to do it so I don’t have elephant legs by the end of the day. Although the last few days I have had to elevate myself to reduce the edema.

Has ANYONE here gone through this?

Hi Anthony,
Yes, I have that problem. It is called “obstructive” edema. Whenever I sit for an hour or even longer, especially for trips in the car, I have very swollen legs and feet. We obstuct our blood flow when we sit upright in a chair, etc. I usually lean back and stretch out my legs for a bit or get up and walk around when I can. I have listened to my doctor tell me these terms for a long time now. He keeps telling me that movement and then elevation are the best ways to take care of this. I hope this helps.