The swelling of your hands, arms, feet, ankles and legs has an official name: edema. Edema occurs when excess fluid gets trapped inside the body tissue. While this can happen in any part of your body, it’s more common in your arms, feet, ankles, legs and hands. The Cause of Swollen Fingers So what exactly causes the ballooning of your fingers? Exercise, underlying medical conditions and heat can all be factors where extra fluids get trapped in your body’s tissues. In hot temperatures, your body usually pushes warm blood to the surface and cools itself through sweating. When this process doesn’t go as planned, swelling begins. Too much salt can also contribute to swelling. Our kidneys filter our blood all day long, removing toxins and unwanted fluids and sending them straight to our bladder. However, when you eat too much salt, your kidneys might not be able to keep up. Fluids inevitably will collect in certain areas, including your hands. There are several other reasons why your fingers could swell, so see if you can make some subtle changes to your lifestyle before calling your doctor. Simple Home Solutions How can you treat or prevent finger swelling? Pay attention to the times of day the swelling occurs. Does it happen after a certain activity? Once you do this, you can start to eliminate the more serious causes and take preventative action. - Fluids can build up overnight, so it’s important to stretch in the morning to get the blood flowing. For your fingers, gently clench each hand into a fist and then release. Repeat this as many times as you wish until you feel that blood flowing. - If hot weather is the cause, you can curl up in a cold, dark room until the hot temperatures subside. Just kidding! To ensure that swollen hands won’t get you down, try running your hands under cold water to reduce swelling. Avoid wearing tight-fitted clothing, and that includes watches and rings − unless it’s a QALO silicone ring. - You can also run your hands under warm water to relax the muscles and get the blood circulating. - Reduce your salt intake by adding fresh fruits and vegetables to you diet. Use herbs and spices for flavoring rather than salt. - Stay active. Yes, exercise can cause swelling, but keeping active will keep it from happening for reasons like sitting still for too long. - Drink water! Do you want healthy skin? Drink water. Do you want to feel hydrated? Drink water. Don’t want to swell up? Drink water. This will help keep the right balance of chemicals in your body and can help with circulation and fluid retention. QALO Silicone Rings as a Solution If swelling is something that happens often for you, don’t hesitate to adopt some of these solutions. In the meantime, have you thought about a more permanent solution? QALO silicone rings are designed so that when your fingers swell – because it happens to everyone – you won’t have to saw off your ring. It will just slip right off and not cause the same discomfort as a metal ring. Above all else, QALO silicone rings are designed for functionality and comfort − all so you can avoid terrifying moments like what you’re about to see. Safety is one of the main reasons to wear QALO. Do you see that medieval tool above? That is what a seemingly soft-spoken jeweler will use to cut your ring off as soon as you show him a swollen finger. He won’t hesitate to take this miniature buzz saw to your ring. In other words, we’ll pass. Here is option number two. A bolt cutter. Need we say more? The last thing you would ever want is for someone to pull out a rubber balloon and slowly wrap it tightly around your finger to then spiral a ring off. It's a painful solution, but isn't safety really about preventing a problem? That's all we're trying to do. Save the balloons for the clown at your kid’s birthday party and place the bolt cutter far, far away from any swollen finger. We hope you never have to come across any of the above methods. By taking a few preventative measures and owning a trusty QALO silicone ring, you’ll never have to take a buzz saw to your finger. That’s because QALO doesn't hurt. QALO hugs.