If you've been diagnosed with peripheral artery disease (PAD), understanding your condition can help you manage it. This video explains what PAD is and how it differs from heart disease, common risk factors, and symptoms to watch for, including leg pain during activity (claudication). It also covers why daily foot and hand checks matter, and how quitting smoking, managing blood pressure and cholesterol, and regular exercise can help with your symptoms.

What Are the Symptoms and Treatments for PAD?

If you have been diagnosed with peripheral artery disease, or PAD, your quality of life may be affected by this condition. So what is peripheral artery disease?

What is PAD?

Peripheral artery disease is the narrowing or blockage of the blood vessels that carry blood to the arms and legs. PAD is different from heart disease because it affects blood vessels in arms and legs and not those going to the heart directly.

What causes PAD?

Risk factors that can lead to peripheral artery disease include smoking or use of tobacco products, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, age, history of a heart attack, heart disease, or stroke, and abnormal cholesterol levels.

What are the symptoms of PAD?

The most common symptom of PAD is muscle cramping or pain, which is also called claudication. When exercising or doing any activity, the legs, hips, or even buttocks may be in pain, and you may not be able to continue your activity.

With physical activity, the body needs to send more blood to the arms and legs, but PAD restricts blood flow due to the damaged vessels. The cramping pain, or claudication, is a sign that your body is not getting enough blood to the area that needs it, causing the pain.

It is important to monitor your claudication symptoms and rest between periods of activity. The pain should go away after the activity with rest.

In addition to arms and legs, peripheral artery disease slows blood flow to your feet and hands. So make sure to check your feet and hands daily to ensure there are no concerns such as redness, cuts, or sores. If you have any concerns, please reach out to your foot doctor or podiatrist.

You may also notice numbness or tingling in the arms and legs. Other symptoms can include issues with foot or toe injuries healing, lower temperature or paleness in your legs, arms, feet, or hands, decreased nail growth on the toes or hair growth on the legs, and erectile dysfunction, especially in men with diabetes.

Be sure to report any symptoms to your doctor to get properly checked out. Your doctor can identify the stage and severity of PAD, the proper treatment, and the risk for amputation.

What are the treatments for PAD?

There is no cure for PAD. There are several treatments to help with symptoms. To treat PAD, it is crucial to stop smoking, control your blood pressure, and manage your cholesterol levels.

It is also important to begin exercising to increase your blood flow. Exercise helps to establish collateral blood flow to your legs and arms. Collateral blood flow is when your body uses smaller backup blood vessels instead of the damaged blood vessels to let blood flow more easily. It takes time to build up these vessels and to notice an improvement in symptoms.

PAD rehabilitation

In PAD rehabilitation, the goal of the program is to improve your quality of life. Your rehabilitation program will be tailored to your goals and needs. PAD is manageable with medication and lifestyle modifications to control your symptoms. To avoid PAD getting worse, please continue treatment as prescribed by your doctor.

Wrap-up

PAD is a serious condition that can affect your quality of life when symptoms are uncontrolled. If you have dismissed early warning signs or symptoms, please contact your doctor to make sure you are getting the treatment that you need. If you have any questions about PAD and how to manage your symptoms, you can chat with your care manager in the Movn app.

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