Safety Sedentariness and what your legs are telling you at work

Lots of things can lead to swelling (also called edema) in your feet and legs. Symptoms of Peripheral Edema

Mild to moderate swelling in the lower legs is common with age and does not always mean you need to be treated. Your legs may feel tight and heavy, and you may notice the skin over your lower legs becoming stretched and shiny. If you press gently on a swollen area for about 15 seconds and it leaves a dent, it is called "pitting edema," and you should let your doctor know about it.
 As you get older you are more likely to collect edema fluid in your lower legs if you stand or sit too long. You may notice tightness and swelling after a long flight or car trip. You may notice "sock marks" when you take off shoes and socks after a long day. In most cases these symptoms are not anything to worry about but if edema is pitting and doesn't clear up quickly, alert your doctor.

Here are some more serious causes of peripheral edema:

Venous insufficiency. This happens when the veins in your legs have become weakened and can't return blood to your heart quickly enough. 
Congestive heart failure. This is the most common cause of serious peripheral edema. Congestive heart failure occurs when your heart is not pumping well enough to keep blood moving through your system. 
Other diseases. Diseases of the lungs, liver, kidney and thyroid can all cause a buildup of fluid that leads to peripheral edema. 
Medications. Some types of antidepressant medications and blood pressure medications can cause edema. If you are taking any of these types of medications and you have edema, talk to your doctor about it.

The good news is there are many solutions to ease the pain and discomfort of relatively normal swelling—all in the comfort of your own home.

But first, it’s important to make sure the garden-variety swelling isn’t accompanied by a sign of something that is, in fact, more serious and needs medical attention.  According to the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, each year 2 million sick days are lost due to lower limb disorders. Many of these sick days could be prevented by wearing the right shoe for the job and following a daily foot care routine.

Sedentariness

Prolonged standing or sitting is one of the major causes behind the accumulation of excess fluids in lower extremities including your feet, ankles, and lower legs.

 What Causes Temporary and Occasional Swelling

• Standing or sitting for a long time. Gravity works so your body’s fluids tend to gravitate at your feet and ankles. Long airplane flights or car rides, as well as standing for long periods of time, often lead to some swelling in the feet and ankles.
  •Eating too much salt and not drinking enough fluids. This makes your body hold onto any liquid it gets.
  • A hot day. Heat expands blood vessels and lets fluid into your body’s tissues.
  • Hormone changes. Your period, being pregnant or going through menopause can cause swelling.
  • Age & weight. If you are elderly or overweight, you’re more likely to sometimes have swollen ankles.

One way to tell if your swelling is temporary is to do this test: Gently push your finger on the swollen area. Hold for at least 5 seconds. Remove your finger and check for a dimple, or indentation, in your skin. If your socks or shoes leave indented rings on your skin, you don’t need to do this test to check if swelling is temporary.Skin that doesn’t pit could be a sign of a more serious circulatory problem called lymphedema. If you have puffiness with no indentation, call to schedule a visit and check in with your doctor. Like many work-related hazards, standing usually is designed into a job. The physical layout or work practices of a task may force workers into awkward positions to reach across wide surfaces or do things repetitively without breaks. Standing is worse when you can’t move around much, or when you work on hard surfaces and/or wear unsuitable footwear.

Muscles work to hold you upright. Without resting or moving around, joints from the neck to the feet can become temporarily “stuck”. When this happens regularly, muscles get tired and their tendons and ligaments can be damaged, causing soft tissue injuries.

Standing still also reduces blood flow to muscles and stops the “muscle pump” (regular muscle movements) that returns blood from the feet and legs to the heart. Other body fluids won’t move unless leg muscles contract. When blood or other fluids don’t move properly, veins get inflamed and feet, ankles and legs swell, causing muscle ache

PROBLEMS THAT CAN RESULT FROM EXTENDED PERIODS OF STANDING

The most commonly reported symptoms from extended periods of standing are discomfort, fatigue and swelling in the legs. Workers required to spend too much time on their feet are at greatly increased risk of pain and discomfort affecting feet, shins and calves, knees, thighs, hips and lower pack. In fact, studies have shown that musculoskeletal disorders are the most common causes of work-related ill-health, and that 17 per cent of these disorders affected the lower limbs.

There are many other debilitating and potentially very serious health concerns related to prolonged standing. Worsening of existing coronary heart disease, varicose veins and chronic venous insufficiency have been associated with prolonged standing, as has pain in the lower limbs and feet. Further studies suggest back pain associated with work is about twice as common in those who work standing compared to those who usually work sitting, even after controlling for age and lifting weights.

Older workers and those employed in heavy manual jobs frequently develop knee and joint pain as they get older, and may become progressively less able to cope with constant standing. Other workers, for example those with arthritis, varicose veins caused by pregnancy or who have suffered a back or lower limb injury are also at an increased risk.

The effects of standing all day can show up almost right away and prolonged standing or walking can often accelerate health problems and soft tissue injuries. For example, standing all day on your feet can result in:

• Varicose veins
  • Plantar fasciitis
  • Low back pain
  • Muscle soreness and fatigue
  • High blood pressure
  • Knee or hip arthritis
  • Bunions
  • Pregnancy complications
  • Neck and shoulder stiffness
  • Chronic heart and circulatory disorders
  • Poor posture (and its effects)
  • Various foot problems and pain
  • Knee problems
  • Swollen or painful feet or legs
  • Stretched Achilles tendon (tendonitis)
  • Joint damage
  • Poor circulation and swelling in feet & legs

Call 9-1-1. Call for an ambulance if you have any of these along with swelling:

• Difficulty breathing or coughing
  • Chest pain
  • Confusion, fainting, or dizziness

Immediately call your doctor. Dial your doctor’s office if you have:

• Swelling in only one foot, ankle, or lower leg
  • Heart disease or kidney disease and swelling gets worse
  • A history of liver disease
  • A sudden increase in swelling and you are pregnant
  • Pain or tenderness
  • An open sore
  • A fever
  • Warmth or redness in a foot, ankle, or lower leg
  • Been injured
  • Swelling for no apparent reason

Check in with your doctor. Schedule a visit with your doctor if you have chronic swelling and take one of these medicines that can have edema as a side effect:

• Antidepressants
  • Birth control pills
  • Calcium-channel blockers, a type of blood pressure medicine
  • Steroids
  • Testosterone

Tips to Prevent Puffiness

Based on what causes swelling, some ways to avoid it are straightforward.

Tap your toes. Take this advice to keep blood flowing.

• Wear adjustable shoes that have hook and loop closures, laces or buckles that you can loosen.
  • Get up and move around every hour if possible, or at least every two hours. Do this at home, work, and when you travel.
  • While sitting or lying down, pump your feet up and down like you’re pressing on a gas pedal 75 times. (This can act as a natural diuretic, so time this exercise appropriately!) Circular motions are also effective.
  • Massage your feet and ankles to improve circulation. Even a light amount of pressure will help. For extra TLC, use a cooling cream, too.
  • On flights, sit in the bulkhead or emergency exit row when you can because you’ll have more room to move your lower body.
  • On long trips, don’t take medicines or sleeping pills that will keep you from moving around.
  • Wearcompression socksor support hosiery to help improve circulation.

Remember salt water is only for oceans. Here’s how to keep salt levels in your natural fluids from rising:
• Drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day. Everything wet counts except alcohol because it passes through you too quickly.
• Eat clean. Natural foods—like fruits, vegetables, and meat—usually aren’t salty. Keep them that way by eating them naturally or adding flavorings other than salt.
• Be picky about packaged foods. Food that’s in a box or can—pretty much anything with a nutrition label—deserves a quick glance at the sodium amounts. Look at the percentage it has for your daily needs and consider that you usually get all the sodium you need before you eat any of these foods.
• Be aware of sneaky salt in items you might not realize have excess amounts. Some foods with a lot of salt may surprise you, like certain cereals, veggie burgers, salad dressings and boxed cake mixes.

Be cool. You don’t need to freeze your feet, but you can refresh them by:

• Using a hot/cold gel pack or therapy booty
  • Exercising in the cooler parts of the day (early morning or late evening)
  • Not taking really long walks in the heat
  • Laying a cool, damp towel over your lower legs, ankles, and feet

Below are simple actions you can take to get you through your day while avoiding …or at least reducing health hazards.

• Alternate standing with sitting:Find the time to sit if you are standing for long periods of time. Use break periods or slow periods to sit.
• If you’re pregnant,try to put your feet up at work and rest with your feet higher than your head.
• Change positions frequently:Try walking around, stretching and standing in different positions to move your weight around.
• Wear comfortable and supportive shoes:Many stylish shoes are made nowadays that not only look great, but are power-packed with support and comfort features. Gone are the days of such shoes looking like something your great-grandmother would have preferred.
• Custom made orthoticssupport the skeleton, muscles and fascia in the correct position – key to relieving many foot pain symptoms. In particular, if you stand on your feet for extensive periods, orthotics help to improve posture, relieve joint stress, support ligaments, treat overpronation, increase comfort while walking and can help to reduce other foot conditions such as heel (plantar fasciitis) and forefoot (metatarsalgia) pain.
• Lower the heel and spare your toes:Keep the really high heels and the very pointy toes for parties and special events. These are not ideal shoes for somebody who works on their feet all day long. Lack of space for toes reduces circulation and encourages a range of problems from cramping of feet; heels push the toes deeper into the end of the shoe and if that end is pointed, there is very little space for the toes to go.
• Cover hard floors:If you are confined to a certain space and it has a hard floor covering, request a rubber mat or a rug to be placed on the floor. This will cushion the area that you are standing on, reducing the impact on your legs and feet from the hard surface.
• Compression hose and socks: Compression socks are well known among people suffering from leg or foot problems but they have benefits that many people, including active individuals and those who stand on their feet all day, can take advantage of.
• Alternating knee flexion:Bend your knee and try, without going beyond your natural range of motion, to touch your heel to your buttocks with one leg and then the other. This will help loosen up the quadriceps (the four major muscles in front of the thighs).
• Figure-8 hip rotations:Circling your hips in a figure-8 motion will prevent both hip tightness and blood stagnation in the lower extremities by shifting your balance from one side to the other.
• Hacky-sack kicks:Kicking an imaginary ball with your instep will help loosen the origin connection points of your gluteus maximus (buttocks), which is the largest muscle in the body. The “glutes” can become tight, especially where they attach to your sacroiliac joint, whether you’re in a sedentary seated or standing position. Just a few kicks on each side can prevent tight glutes.
• Hamstring stretch:A great way to activate the hamstrings and stretch them simultaneously (strengthening and lengthening) is to do an active hamstring stretch. Simply stick your buttocks out, keeping your back flat. Rock back on your heels. Keep your knees slightly bent. Squeeze the inside of your thighs together without actually moving the knees and reach your chin forward. Unlike the more popular passive way to stretch, this active stretch should provide immediate relief to your hamstrings.
• Calf stretch:If you can’t take a quick work break to do a downward-dog stretch, place both hands shoulder width apart and level on a wall, or, even at desk level. Place one foot forward and bend the knee so that the knee is directly over the ankle. The rear leg should be straight. You should feel the rear calf muscles stretching. As with the hamstring stretch, try to isometrically contract your thighs by activating the inner thighs without actually moving the knees.