Peripheral artery disease (also called PAD) is a common circulatory Problem In which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to your limbs When you develop PAD, your extremities usually your legs don’t receive enough blood flow to keep up with demand. This causes symptoms, most notably leg pain while walking (intermittent claudication). PAD is also likely to be a sign of a more widespread accumulation of fat deposits in you arteries (atherosclerosis).

This condition may be reducing blood flow to your heart and brain, as well as your legs.

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Peripheral artery disease symptoms include

• Intermittent Claudication: like painful cramps in your hip, thigh or muscles after activiry, such as walking or climbing stairs.
• Leg numbness or weakness
• Coldness in your lower leg or foot, especially when compared with the other side
• Saes or wounds on your toes, feet or legs that heals slowly
• A change in the color of your legs
• Hair loss or slower hair growth on your feet and legs
• Slower growth of your toenails
• Shiny skin on your legs
• No pulse or a weak pulse in your legs or feet
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If peripheral artery disease progresses, pain may even occur when you are at rest or when you are lying down. It may be intense enough to disrupt sleep. Hanging your legs over the edge of your bed or walking around your room may temporarily relieve the pain.

Diagnosis

Physical Exam — The tests may show a weak or absent pulse below a narrowed part of your artery. decreased blood pressure in your legs, or sores that are not properly healing.

Ankle-Brachial Index (ABU) — One of the most common PAD tests, ABI compares blood pressure in your ankle with pressure in your arm.

Ultrasound (Doppler) — Ultrasound is a painless non invasive procedure that assesses the degree of circulatory impairment by evaluating the blood flow to identify blocked or narrowed arteries.

Angiography (OSA) — A test using an injected dye, your doctor can view blood flow through your arteries. and find problem areas.

Angiography (Cm) — A specialized X ray machine (CT SCAN) rapidly rotates around the body to produce view of the arteries and surrounding structures.

Treatment options

Treatment is to manage symptoms, such as lag pain, and stop the progression of atherosclerosis throughout your body which may be accomplished with lifestyle changes like:

Physical Activity

Exercise has been proven to create new blood vessels, and restore blood circulation in your legs. It is one of the most effective treatments for PAD is regular physical activity. You may have to begin slowly, but simple walking regimens, leg exercises and treadmill exercise programs three times a week can result in deceased symptoms in just four to eight weeks.

Smoking Cessation

Tobacco smoking increases your risk for PAD and your risk for heart attack and stroke. Smokers may have four times the risk of developing PAD than nonsmokers. Stop smoking. It will help to slow the progression of PAD and other heart-related diseases.

Medication

High blood pressure medications and/or cholesterol-lowering medications. It’s important to make sure that you take the medication as recommended by your healthcare professional.

Medications that your doctor may prescribe to help improve the distance you can walk — In addition, you may be prescribed antiplatelet medications to help prevent blood clots.

Procedures

Surgical options

Endovascular: Endovascular surgery is a form of minimally invasive surgery designed to access many regions of the body via major blood vessels.

• Angioplasty
• Stenting

Open surgery: Open surgery is the traditional type of surgery where a long incision is made for the surgeon to insert the instruments, visualizing the surgery.

• Incision of plastic graft
• Open bypass
• Endarterectomy

Factors that increase your risk of developing peripheral artery disease include:

• Smoking
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• A family history of PAD
• Obesity
• Increasing age, especially after reaching 50 years of age

Causes

Peripheral artery disease is often caused by atherosclerosis, where fat deposits (plaques) build up in the arteries and reduce blood flow.

If you have PAD in your legs, you probably have narrowed blood vessels throughout your body.

Other causes may be injury to a limb, blood clots in your arteries, or infection. Although the heart is usually the focus of discussion of atherosclerosis, this disease can and usually does affect arteries throughout your body_ When it occurs in the arteries supplying blood to your limbs, it causes peripheral artery disease.

Less commonly, the cause of peripheral artery disease may be blood vessel inflammation, injury to your limbs, unusual anatomy of your ligaments or muscles, or radiation exposure.

Diet

Many PAD patients have elevated cholesterol levels, eating a healthy diet can control your blood pressure and cholesterol levels without medicine, in many cases. A diet low.