Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat Are Weeping Legs?Is It a Symptom of Diabetes?Treatments & ManagementWhen to Seek Medical Care
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
What Are Weeping Legs?
Is It a Symptom of Diabetes?
Treatments & Management
When to Seek Medical Care
Weeping legs, which describes fluid that leaks or oozes from the leg, can be a complex condition to manage. While your legs may weep fluid for various reasons, it could be a symptom, or complication, ofdiabetes.
Diabetes is a condition that affects the body’s ability to process and control blood sugar. One common symptom of diabetes is slow-healing cuts or sores, which could be a source of leaking fluid.
This photo contains content that some people may find graphic or disturbing.See Photojax10289 / Getty Images
This photo contains content that some people may find graphic or disturbing.See Photo
This photo contains content that some people may find graphic or disturbing.
jax10289 / Getty Images
“Weeping legs” describes fluid leaking from your legs, often fromswellingor a wound. While swelling and wounds are the primary causes behind this weeping, several underlying conditions, like diabetes, can cause those wounds or sores and lead to this problem.
Fluid may leak through seemingly intact skin or from new or chronic wounds. The wetness associated with this issue can make controlling the leak and managing wounds particularly challenging.
Additionally, while fluid that leaks through the skin on your legs may appear pink or bloody, weeping legs usually only entails the leaking of clear, orserous, fluid.
A Symptom of Diabetes Complications
Weeping legs can appear with many conditions, including diabetes. Diabetes doesn’t usually directly cause weeping; instead, it is a symptom of severaldiabetes complications.
Diabetes can impact the overall health of yourskinand your ability to heal from wounds. Decreased circulation and slow healing in people with diabetes contribute to chronic wounds, such asdiabetic ulcers. With these injuries, even a minor cut that goes undetected due to nerve damage can become a severe wound over time. Diabetes also makes treatment and healing more difficult.
Below are additional symptoms and complications of diabetes that can lead to weeping legs.
Fluid Shifts and Kidney Damage
Your kidneys turn waste and extra fluid from your body into urine and remove these excesses from the body. Over time, high blood sugar levels fromuncontrolled diabetescan damage the delicate tissues of the kidneys, reducing their ability to remove minerals, fluid, and other substances from your body.
If you developkidney diseaseor other fluid balance disorders from diabetes, you can experience severe swelling. This swelling may lead to leaking fluids through the skin on your legs or blisters formed from the swelling.
Heart Disease
Diabetes is also a risk factor forheart diseaseor failure, a condition that can contribute to fluid buildup in your body.
With heart failure, in particular, a weakened heart can lower your body’s ability to properly move blood—and therefore fluids—throughout your body. When this happens, fluid can build up, especially in the legs.
People with heart failure may notice deep pitting in their legs when the skin is pressed (also known aspitting edema), signaling a collection of fluid in the tissue below the skin. Open wounds, or simply too much force from within your legs, can cause this fluid to leak out, giving your legs a weeping appearance.
Nerve Damage, Vein Diseases, and Poor Wound Healing
Nerve damage (neuropathy) andvascular diseaseare common complications of diabetes. Nerve damage increases your risk of developing injuries from stepping on things you don’t feel, and vascular disease increases developing wounds fromulcers.
While these types of injuries can happen to anyone, people withdiabetesstruggle with delayed or slow wound healing. Chronic wounds and slow healing are major risk factors for developing severe wounds that can weep or leak.
Treatments and Management
The best way to prevent leg weeping if you have diabetes is to keep your blood sugar under control to decrease other complications. This includes maintaining a healthy, low-carbohydrate diet, taking yourmedicationsas prescribed, and staying physically active.
If you experience diabetes complications or develop them throughout the course of your disease, speak with your healthcare provider about how to manage them and avoid severe infection or injury.
When it comes to weeping legs, in particular, several specialty dressings can help control weeping and promote healing. Most of these dressings focus on keeping the bed of the wound moist and clear of bacteria.
Several home remedies can help heal, slow weeping, and protect healthy skin from constant moisture. These include the following:
When to See Your Healthcare Provider
If you have diabetes and deal with chronic, weeping wounds, you should regularly see your healthcare provider to check on their healing progress and head off any complications, like an infection.
A new fever could signify that your wound has caused a more systemic infection. In some cases, you might also notice foul-smelling or colored drainage from the wound or the formation of dark tissue at the wound site. If this happens, it’s important to see your healthcare provider immediately, as you may need additional treatment for the infection.
Summary
Chronic wounds and ulcers are a common complication of uncontrolled diabetes. People with diabetes are also more likely than people without the condition to develop other conditions like heart disease or kidney failure.
Any one of these problems—or a combination of them all—could cause you to develop weeping legs alongside your diabetes. Talk to your doctor about how to manage this complication, and what to do if you have diabetes and want to prevent issues like chronic wounds.
8 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Diabetes Association.Good to know: Diabetes symptoms and tests.Clinical Diabetes. 2020;38(1):108-108. doi:10.2337/cd20-pe01University of Central Florida Health.Diabetes and leg swelling.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Preventing diabetes complications.Mein SA, Schwarzstein RM, Richards JB.Sugar, sodium, and water: A recipe for disaster.Annals ATS. 2019;17(8). doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.202004-360CC.Ferguson NN.Edema blisters. In: Rosenbach M, Wanat KA, Micheletti RG, Taylor LA, eds.Inpatient Dermatology. Springer International Publishing; 2018:399-401.MedlinePlus.Diabetes: Foot ulcers.Gianino E, Miller C, Gilmore J.Smart wound dressings for diabetic chronic wounds.Bioengineering. 2018;5(3):51. doi:10.3390/bioengineering5030051.Anderson I.‘Leaky legs’: Strategies for the treatment and management of lower-limb lymphorrhoea.Nursing Times.2015;113(1):50-53.
8 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Diabetes Association.Good to know: Diabetes symptoms and tests.Clinical Diabetes. 2020;38(1):108-108. doi:10.2337/cd20-pe01University of Central Florida Health.Diabetes and leg swelling.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Preventing diabetes complications.Mein SA, Schwarzstein RM, Richards JB.Sugar, sodium, and water: A recipe for disaster.Annals ATS. 2019;17(8). doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.202004-360CC.Ferguson NN.Edema blisters. In: Rosenbach M, Wanat KA, Micheletti RG, Taylor LA, eds.Inpatient Dermatology. Springer International Publishing; 2018:399-401.MedlinePlus.Diabetes: Foot ulcers.Gianino E, Miller C, Gilmore J.Smart wound dressings for diabetic chronic wounds.Bioengineering. 2018;5(3):51. doi:10.3390/bioengineering5030051.Anderson I.‘Leaky legs’: Strategies for the treatment and management of lower-limb lymphorrhoea.Nursing Times.2015;113(1):50-53.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
American Diabetes Association.Good to know: Diabetes symptoms and tests.Clinical Diabetes. 2020;38(1):108-108. doi:10.2337/cd20-pe01University of Central Florida Health.Diabetes and leg swelling.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Preventing diabetes complications.Mein SA, Schwarzstein RM, Richards JB.Sugar, sodium, and water: A recipe for disaster.Annals ATS. 2019;17(8). doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.202004-360CC.Ferguson NN.Edema blisters. In: Rosenbach M, Wanat KA, Micheletti RG, Taylor LA, eds.Inpatient Dermatology. Springer International Publishing; 2018:399-401.MedlinePlus.Diabetes: Foot ulcers.Gianino E, Miller C, Gilmore J.Smart wound dressings for diabetic chronic wounds.Bioengineering. 2018;5(3):51. doi:10.3390/bioengineering5030051.Anderson I.‘Leaky legs’: Strategies for the treatment and management of lower-limb lymphorrhoea.Nursing Times.2015;113(1):50-53.
American Diabetes Association.Good to know: Diabetes symptoms and tests.Clinical Diabetes. 2020;38(1):108-108. doi:10.2337/cd20-pe01
University of Central Florida Health.Diabetes and leg swelling.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Preventing diabetes complications.
Mein SA, Schwarzstein RM, Richards JB.Sugar, sodium, and water: A recipe for disaster.Annals ATS. 2019;17(8). doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.202004-360CC.
Ferguson NN.Edema blisters. In: Rosenbach M, Wanat KA, Micheletti RG, Taylor LA, eds.Inpatient Dermatology. Springer International Publishing; 2018:399-401.
MedlinePlus.Diabetes: Foot ulcers.
Gianino E, Miller C, Gilmore J.Smart wound dressings for diabetic chronic wounds.Bioengineering. 2018;5(3):51. doi:10.3390/bioengineering5030051.
Anderson I.‘Leaky legs’: Strategies for the treatment and management of lower-limb lymphorrhoea.Nursing Times.2015;113(1):50-53.
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