Home remedies · Back, muscles & joints
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Raise the legs above heart level, shower them cold from the bottom up, pump the feet up and down while sitting. When standing for long, change stance.
The calf muscles pump blood back to the heart. Sitting or standing without moving them lets fluid pool in the tissue.
With varicose veins it eases things without changing them. And it says nothing about where the swelling comes from.
A one-sided swollen, warm or painful leg needs assessing at once — likewise swelling with breathlessness.
Have it assessed rather than treated at home: back pain with numbness in the saddle area, disturbed bladder or bowel function, weakness or fever. A joint that cannot bear weight after an injury, or is deformed. A one-sided swollen, warm leg.