Strange as it may sound, edema is caused by not drinking enough water.

Retained water doesn't mean you drink too much. This water accumulates in the area outside the cells. The important water that is needed in the body is on the inside of the cells - and there is a difference.

The body functions on fresh water - which is what is needed inside the cells. It gets most of the other nutrients it needs through food. But water is something you actually have to drink - and it needs lots of it because every function depends on it.

When you don't drink enough water, the only way the body can protect itself is by storing extra salt - which retains the water. As mentioned, the inside of the cells requires fresh water. The water attracted by the salt is kept in the area outside the cells. And this is the water you're retaining.

The excess water is for one purpose only - as emergency rations to be filtered and injected into your dehydrated cells. You need to start drinking more water than you do - this fresh water goes directly into the cells. When the proper balance between the inside and the outside of the cells is restored the edema will start to disappear.

Hold back on your salt intake for a few days or so or until the swelling starts going down. Then increase it again just to the point where the proper balance is achieved.

It looks like you may have idiopathic edema, and you might not even fit that pattern very well.