Another pain you shouldn’t ignore

Some of Help My Hurt’s regular readers may remember a couple of posts I’ve written about pains you should never ignore (Pain you should never ignore and  Surgeon General: Watch that calf pain, it may be a blood clot). There’s another one to add to the list now.

Do you ever feel pain in your legs, specifically the calves, when you’re walking up the stairs? Of course, it may just be pain from lack of exercise, but it could also be a sign of something much more serious called peripheral vascular disease, or PVD. The peripheral vascular system is the blood vessel system in your body that is not in your heart or your brain.

In PVD, plaque builds up along the artery walls. Once the plaque has built up enough, the blood has a hard time getting past. Many times, there are no symptoms, but about half the time, there are. If this is in the legs, you can start to feel pain, numbness or an aching feeling anywhere from your foot up to your buttocks.

If you’ve been experiencing pain in your legs, especially if you’re in a  high risk group such as people w who smoke, have high blood pressure, are overweight, or who have high cholesterol levels, make sure you mention this pain or ache to your doctor.

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Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, peripheral vascular disease, pvd, plaque build up, leg pain, high cholesterol levels