Preventing Peripheral Vascular Disease
You play a quick game of tennis but you notice that your legs hurt more than usual. Gradually, you notice your legs aren’t what they used be. Eventually you can’t walk the two blocks from the parking garage to your apartment. You might have peripheral vascular disease.
Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) describes clogged arteries in the legs (and occasionally the arms) that trigger numbness or intense pain, with even minimal exercise. PVD may impact any blood vessel outside of the heart.
The most common cause of PVD is atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque inside the artery that leads to blockage and eventually reduces the blood supply to the affected organ. Just like the when the blood supply to the heart is reduced we get angina or heart attack similarly when blockages occur in the carotid we get brain stroke further when the blockages occur in leg vessels we get blackening of the toes or gangrene of the legs.
The causes of atherosclerosis are similar. It’s a generalized process in which the entire blood vessel tree affected like age of more than 50 years, overweight, raised cholesterol levels, stroke, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, or kidney disease.
If you notice pain in the legs and feet after walking for a few hundred meters, blackish discoloration of toes (gangrene), non-healing ulcerations, in males impotence, numbness, hair loss, or slower hair growth on the legs, weakness and pain in the toe, see your doctor right away. When the artery is very narrow or blocked, there is cramping or severe pain in a sitting position we call rest pain, particularly in diabetes patients. The affected leg feels unusually cold as compared with an unaffected leg.
If you leave this condition untreated then you may experience a stroke or gangrene of the leg. Plaque buildup in the arteries can also take a toll on the blood vessels in the heart and brain. Another problem that can be seen due to this condition is critical limb ischemia wherein a tissue dies because of severely reduced blood supply.
In order to be diagnosed, your doctor will see you in the clinic and check for pulsations in leg vessels. If she feels that the pulse in your leg is feeble then she advises you on further tests. Ultrasound Doppler of the affected leg is the initial screening test done and later on, blood tests, computerized tomography, angiography, (CTA) angiography, ultrasound or even ankle-brachial index (ABI) test can aid in the diagnosis of this condition.
Treatment of this condition can vary. There are various types of options such as medical management, angioplasty, atherectomy or peripheral artery bypass surgery that your doctor may advise you.
One tip to keep PVD at bay is to give up smoking. Other suggestions are to eat foods low in saturated fat, control your blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels with the help of medication prescribed by your doctor. Medications may include statins to help lower bad cholesterol and reduce plaque buildup in the arteries. Other recommended drugs are clopidogrel (Plavix) and cilostazol. Don’t forget to exercise daily and maintain an optimum weight.
