This often reduces blood flow to your legs or feet, but it can affect your arms as well.
Advanced disease can cause constant pain and tissue death.
Treatments are available, so talk to your healthcare provider about a diagnosis.
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It most often affects the legs and causesclaudication, or leg pain when walking.
Causes and Risk Factors
In the large majority of cases, PAD is triggered by atherosclerosis.
Risk factors include:
PAD also is more likely to affect males, and females after menopause.
When PAD is diagnosed, it often means thatcoronary artery disease (CAD)also is present.
The American College of Cardiology reports that some 42% of people living with CAD also have PAD.
Diagnosis
A diagnosis of PAD includes careful examination and evaluation of your family and health history.
Some people develop critical limb ischemia, a more serious form of PAD that causes increased blood flow issues.
Complications can lead togangreneinfection or limb loss (amputation).
Stroke is more likely to occur in those with PAD than among healthy people.
PAD also can co-occur with mental health issues and complications, including depression.
Talk with your healthcare provider about ways to quit if tobacco use is part of your health history.
It is most often due to high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other heart health factors.
There is no cure and complications of PAD can be serious and potentially fatal.
Medication, surgery, and other treatments are available to extend and improve quality of life.
American Heart Association.Peripheral artery disease.
Yale Medicine.Peripheral artery disease (PAD).
2024 Jun 11;149(24):e1313-e1410.
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American Heart Association.Understand Your Risk for PAD.
Johns Hopkins Medicine.Peripheral Vascular Disease.
2023 Oct 20;15(10):e47372.
doi:10.7759/cureus.47372
American College of Cardiology.Peripheral and coronary artery disease: Two sides of the same coin.
British Heart Foundation.Focus on Peripheral Arterial Disease.
University of California Davis Vascular Center.Critical limb ischemia (CLI).
