Question about edema/fingers and eyelid swelling

[Guest guest]

I have a question about edema and I don't know the answer. I am

hoping someone here can help.

I have a friend that I saw twice in the last 3 days and both times

her eyes and face looked swollen - the first time she told me she had

slept on her right side the night before and when she woke up that

morning her right eye was extremely swollen - the lid was hanging

over the eye a little bit and the under eye area was very

swollen. When I saw her a couple of hours later the area was still

swollen enough that I asked her if she had an allergic reaction to

something or if she had changed her face wash. She told me no, and

also mentioned that her fingers had been swollen for a few days,

which is really normal for her, either. The eye at that time, which

was about 3 hours after she had gotten out of bed, still looked " set

back " in the eye socket because of the eyelid swelling. The eye that

day stayed swollen most of the day. Today, a day and a half later,

again she told me she had slept on her left side (I guess she is

usually a back sleeper) and when she woke up that morning her left

eye was swollen, along with the right, although neither was swollen

as much as the right eye was two days ago. Fingers are still swollen

although not as bad as the last 3 days.

I've asked about her diet and she usually eats fruits, vegetables, no

meat, no dairy and very, very little processed food. Drinks tea and

water, no soda pop or coffee. Bowel movements good, usually 3-5 a

day and no constipation at this time. The only thing she has done

different is about a week ago she started taking a two packet a day

vitamin regime named MultiEssentials. I've sent along a link from iHerb here:

http://www.iherb.com/store/ProductDetails.aspx?c=Herbs & pid=NFS-04938

We went over the ingredient list and she doesn't know of anything on

it she may be allergic to. I don't know enough about some of these

ingredients to know what they are.

She is very worried about the swelling and knowing her as well as I

do, it is highly unusual for her, especially to see the eye and

eyelid swelling hang around as long as it has and frankly, I'm

worried about how she looks too and what might be going on.

Would anyone like to comment on what they think might be

happening? Could the vitamin regime start a cleansing effect, and if

it did, is edema and swelling of the face and eyes, especially, a

by-product of cleansing?

I told her about what I had read here about a castor oil pack and she

is interested in trying one on her kidneys. If you put a castor oil

pack on your kidneys, would you put the flannel on your back or your

stomach? Is there something better to use on the kidneys besides

castor oil? She also had a bottle of liquid Bentonite Clay in the

cupboard and she took that out and started taking it today, but only

a couple of tablespoons so far. I told her beginning tomorrow she

might kick the Bentonite up to a tablespoon every few hours and do

that all day.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks!