What is swelling?

Swelling is when your body fills up with extra liquid to help fix a problem.

Imagine you have a balloon that's already half-full of air. Now someone adds more air into it, the balloon gets bigger and feels squishy. That’s kind of what happens when you swell. Your skin or a part of your body, like your ankle, might look bigger and feel softer because there’s more liquid inside.

Sometimes, your body gets hurt or tired from playing too much. When that happens, little tiny tubes in your body let out extra liquid, like when you open a tap, the liquid flows out and fills up the space around the injury.

It's like if you dropped your toy on the floor and it got a little bruise. Your body sends more liquid to help heal it, so that part of you feels bigger and softer, just like a puffy cloud in the sky!