I Have Resting Leg Pain: Could It Be PAD?

Nearly 50 million Americans suffer from peripheral artery disease (PAD), a chronic disease that interferes with blood flow in your arteries. Yet many people, including those most prone to the disease, don’t understand PAD well.

Our team at Florida Heart, Vein, and Vascular Institute offers patient-centered therapies for peripheral vascular disease, including PAD. 

To mark Peripheral Artery Disease Awareness Month, we’re dedicating this post to helping patients understand PAD, including why it happens, what symptoms it causes, and whether resting leg pain is a sign you need to schedule a PAD evaluation.

Understanding PAD

Peripheral arteries include the arteries located outside your heart and lungs — particularly the arteries in your legs and arms. These are the arteries most commonly affected by PAD.

PAD develops when sticky cholesterol deposits called plaques form along the walls of the peripheral arteries. These plaques make it harder for blood to flow through the arteries, which means less oxygen and nutrients pass through to muscles and other tissues.

PAD becomes more common with older age, and it’s associated with other risk factors, too, including:

• Smoking
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Obesity
• Diabetes

It’s also more common among people with a family history of PAD or cardiovascular disease.

Not surprisingly, a decline in normal circulation can lead to a variety of symptoms, including leg pain. Most often, this pain is more common during exercise, when the demand for oxygen increases in your leg muscles. But if you have advanced PAD, you can have leg pain even when you’re at rest.

How to tell if you have PAD

Knowing the symptoms associated with PAD helps you decide when you need a medical evaluation. Without prompt medical care, PAD can lead to more serious problems, including tissue death and gangrene. 

People with PAD are also more likely to have heart attacks and strokes.

Leg pain is one symptom of PAD, but there are other symptoms you should know about, including:

• Changes in skin color
• Slow hair growth on the limb
• Muscle weakness
• Slow-to-heal wounds
• Numbness or tingling in the limb
• Decreased pulse in one or both feet
• Skin that feels unusually cool (or perpetually cold feet)
• Skin that looks shiny

Many people with PAD have no noticeable symptoms, which means it’s especially important to have a PAD evaluation if you have any risk factors for the disease.

PAD can also cause different symptoms depending on the severity of the disease, your lifestyle,  and other factors. A medical evaluation is the only way to know for sure if you’re suffering from PAD.

Diagnosis and treatment

During your evaluation, we evaluate your legs and the pulses in your ankles. We may order a vascular ultrasound to gain an inside view of your arteries.

If we diagnose PAD, we tailor a treatment plan just for you. Depending on your needs, your therapy may include lifestyle changes, medications, or minimally invasive procedures to treat diseased veins or manage clots.

Don’t ignore leg pain

Leg pain is never normal, and sometimes the underlying cause can be quite serious. If you’re having leg pain or other symptoms of PAD — or even if you have no symptoms, but you have PAD risk factors — schedule an evaluation to prevent more serious complications. 

To find out what’s causing your leg pain, request an appointment online or over the phone with our team at Florida Heart, Vein, and Vascular Institute in Zephyrhills, Lakeland, Plant City, or Riverview, Florida, today.