PAD: What it could mean for you.

How healthy are your arteries?

Do you ever experience extremely painful muscle cramping in your hips, buttock, thighs or calves when walking or exercising? Does this pain stop after a few minutes after you stop walking or exercising? If you answered yes, to these questions you might be at risk for PAD.

What is PAD?

It’s estimated that Peripheral arterial disease affects approximately 8.5 million Americans. This cramping pain that you feel is called intermittent claudication. This is basically when your muscles are alarming the rest of your body that it needs more blood, in order to keep walking or exercising. Sometimes blockages in your arteries, due to plaques, won’t allow enough blood to get to the muscles that it is demanding. The older you are the more at risk you are for having PAD.

How can you diagnose PAD?

PAD can be diagnosed through a series of non- invasive vascular test, such as ABIs (Ankle Brachial index). This is an exam where you compare the blood pressure of your ankles to the blood pressure to your arms, this determines how well your blood is flowing.

We simple place blood pressure cuffs on your arms, thighs, calves and ankles and take your blood pressure at each level. This is a painless test that is quick and easy to perform in our office. If you think you might need a test please don’t hesitate we will be glad to perform the exam and review your results.

If you or someone you know might be interest in discussing more about PAD signs and symptoms, come into our office Frederick Foot & Ankle. We would be more than happy to schedule an appointment, at any of our 3 offices in Frederick, MD or Urbana, MD.