34 weeks and extremely swollen feet

[bumpology]

Has anyone else had any experience with extremely swollen feet during pregnancy?

Mine are starting to bruise from the pressure, and I'm starting to get burst blood vessels around my ankles/lower legs.

Also, they're really tight and uncomfortable. Aside from lying on the floor with my feet up against the wall, does anyone have any tips?

And do burst blood vessels disappear after the pregnancy, or am I stuck with them for life?

I am 28 wks and have extremely swollen feet and ankles too. Can't get them in any of my shoes and they look grotesque. You have to elevate them as much as possible. Try soaking in a bucket of v hot or v cold water or alternating between the two. Do lots of ankle stretching and rotating and flex your toes etc whilst they are elevated to speed up circulation. Apparently compression flight socks can help.
most importantly - get your blood pressure and urine checked to make sure you don't have pre eclampsia - bad swelling can be a symptom of this.

I am almost certain someone will be along shortly to warn you that extremely swollen feet in late pregnancy is potentially serious (I am not sure why - pre eclampsia?) and that you should get this looked at by your GP asap.

yes, i should get your blood pressure checked asap if you can. if you can't get hold of a midwife for ages (i never could) get a gp appointment just to make sure.
but it may just be the heat.
only 6 weeks to go!

Please contact your care team. This happened to me and I was very ill with pre eclampsia. Hope all turns out well but please seek advice.

Thanks everyone - I checked my own blood pressure last night, and it seems fine, but I have bought some flight socks and I'm seeing an obstetrician on Thursday anyway, so will mention it then.
I'm not usually one to complain about the heat - but I'd give anything for a litle cooling rain!

Swollen feet (oedema) in pregnancy is not in itself necessarily a cause for concern, and is pretty common in late pregnancy, especially in summer.

If you also have swollen hands and if your face is swollen too, that can be a sign of something more serious. Having said that, swollen feet shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as others have said, but if your BP is fine, it's probably OK.

Apparently it peaks at around 35 weeks, and this was true for me. I am 38 weeks tomorrow, and my feet have gone down a bit since then (they were balloons at that stage!), although are still swollen!

My midwife also told me that they can hang around for anything up to 3 weeks after the birth. And apparently one of the side effects as they start to subside after the birth is that you need the loo a lot - that excess fluid has to escape somehow!!

My feet have been a lot like this over the last few weeks, I'm at 37 weeks now. I couldn't actually get flight socks on as they hurt too much. I found drinking pints and pints of water really helped them to go down. Obviously I ended up going to the loo very frequently but that was better than painful swollen feet and ankles

Obviously, like everyone says, get this checked out with GP. But assuming this is just part and parcel, anything to improve blood vessel health may help, buckwheat can help in the blood vessel arena. I've got my own swelling issues so I've been cooking myself the odd buckwheat pancake: 1 egg, some milk and buckwheat flour. It's a heavy dish and not suited to this heat but'll give you energy and may help with your swelling.

Hope it goes down soon.