Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)

A healthy lifestyle helps reduce your risk and manage early symptoms of PAD.

• Follow a heart-healthy diet. Include plenty of fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products and avoid foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol.
• Quit smoking.

Exercise

Incorporate regular physical activity, like walking, into your routine for 30 minutes at least three or four times per week. Walking can notably enhance your quality of life. Along with relieving PAD symptoms, a consistent walking regimen will:

• Help you stay active.
• Help control blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol and body weight, all of which can increase your risk of PAD complications.
• Lower your chances of having a heart attack or stroke

Foot care

If you have diabetes and PAD, talk with your physician about proper foot care.

PAD reduces blood flow to your feet, and minor problems, such as cuts, sores and blisters, may not heal quickly. Diabetes may complicate foot problems because it can reduce blood circulation in your feet and legs and can cause nerve damage, or diabetic neuropathy. Diabetic neuropathy can cause you to have decreased sensation in your feet, and you may not feel a sore or a blister developing on your foot.

You can prevent minor foot injuries from turning into infections by:

• Always wearing shoes, socks or slippers, even indoors
• Cleaning your feet daily and inspecting them for cuts, blisters, sores, callouses and other injuries
• Cutting toenails in a straight line
• Wearing properly fitting shoes
• Seeking professional care for corn and callous removal

If you have PAD caused by atherosclerosis, you may be eligible to receive supervised exercise therapy, which helps improve your ability and confidence to perform daily activities.

In addition to lifestyle changes and exercise therapy, your vascular specialist may prescribe medications to help manage chronic conditions, such as blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes.

You may also need to take blood thinners to help prevent the formation of blood clots. When plaque builds up in your arteries, that plaque can break off, causing blood clots to form and increasing your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Conservative treatments may be enough to control PAD and even improve symptoms. But you may need angioplasty, stents, or in more advanced cases, surgery if your leg arteries are severely clogged or narrowed. These treatment options can improve blood flow to your extremities.

Some of the most common procedures to treat PAD are:

• Angioplasty: Angioplasty uses a tiny, balloon-tipped catheter inserted into the blocked artery to open it up. Your doctor inserts the catheter into an artery and guides it to the blocked area of the artery. Once the catheter is in place, they expand the balloon. A wire-mesh tube, called a stent, is often placed in the newly opened artery through the catheter to maintain normal blood flow.
• Stenting: Vascular surgeons can perform stenting for PAD that affects the upper and lower extremities. The procedure is often used when a blockage causes PAD. Your vascular surgeon will place a stent into the artery to keep it open, rerouting the blood supply around the blocked artery.
• Bypass surgery: In this treatment, vascular surgeons transplant a vein from another part of the body, or use a man-made tube, and attach it to the blocked artery above and below the blockage. Blood can then flow around the blockage through the transplanted artery.