Skip to content 
Symptoms of ascites
Patients with ascites due to liver disease have other manifestations of liver disease including:
- Jaundice, especially in acute liver inflammation
- Swelling of the legs
- Easy bruising and bleeding
- Loss of muscle mass
- Feeling of easy fatiguability
- Insomnia, increased sleeping hours or both
On the other hand, other causes of ascites can cause other manifestations of it including:
- Kidney problems can cause swelling of the legs, metallic taste in the mouth, difficulty breathing, and easy bleeding.
- Malnutrition is associated with hair loss, pallor, generalized weakness, and loss of muscle mass.
- Heart failure is also associated with difficulty breathing, leg swelling and inability to do any effort.
- Symptoms of cancer in case of ovarian cancer include loss of weight in a short period of time, generalized weakness and enlarged lymph nodes.
Other symptoms may be related to the ascites itself and they include:
- Abdominal discomfort, which occurs when the abdomen is hugely distended with the fluid, causing pressure on the abdominal wall muscles.
- Difficulty in breathing: Difficulty breathing can occur if ascites is huge and is an indication for immediate treatment.
- Fever: Although fever is not a manifestation of ascites, the fluid can commonly become infected, causing fever.
- Hernia: Persistent ascites causes weakness of abdominal wall muscles, predisposing the patient to umbilical hernia, which is the protrusion of a part of the intestines covered by skin outside the abdominal cavity.
