Why Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Have Swelling in Face

Sometimes, the patients with type 1 Diabetes may suffer from swelling in face. How does it occur? Does it can aggravate the disease progression?

If the patients have the swelling occasionally, it is may be caused by excess water intake or overwork etc. However, if it exists for too long and reoccurs frequently, the patients should pay more attention to it because it is may be related to kidney injury.

Kidney injury is very common in the patients with a long history of Diabetes such as above 10 years.

The capillaries in kidneys are responsible for filtering blood and discharging metabolic products. Meanwhile, the kidneys can keep the useful stuffs in blood. However, if blood sugar level is controlled poorly, it will impair the capillaries. As a result, the kidneys can not function normally and a lot of waste products build up in body and a lot of proteins leak into urine.

On one hand, as proteins leak into urine, the protein level in blood will decline. Afterwards, fluid in blood vessels will immerse into subcutaneous tissue. As the tissues in face are soft, it is involved primarily.

On the other hand, the kidneys can not filter fluid normally as before. As a result, they will build up in body. It is also a common cause of swelling in face.

So, how to relieve it?

1. The patients with type 1 Diabetes should limit water intake properly.

2. The doctors will recommend some diuretic to relive it.

3. The patients should go for tests to find out if it is caused by kidney injury. If so, they should take proper treatment as soon as possible. If the patients with type 1 Diabetes have proteins in urine, the disease usually at least has developed into stage 3 of Diabetic Nephropathy.


To prevent renal injury, the experts remind all the patients with Diabetes that they should go for regular microalbuminuria.