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Peripheral Arterial Disease

How Do You Know If You Have PAD?

Summary & Participants

Millions of Americans suffer from peripheral arterial disease (PAD), a disease that occurs when your blood cannot flow efficiently through your arteries. Find out it you are at risk for this serious disease.

Medically Reviewed On: July 23, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Almost eight million people in the United States who have peripheral arterial disease remain undiagnosed and unaware of this condition. Knowing your risk factors can be an important first step in determining if you have PAD.

ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: The prevalence of peripheral arterial disease is quite significant. As many as a fourth of the population over age sixty has peripheral arterial disease. Patients that are risk of developing PAD are principally the same people who are at risk of having heart attacks, because the disease process is the same. People who are smokers, people who eat a lot of fat, that is, high cholesterol in the diet, people who are diabetics, people who have a family history of artery disease, whether it's in the heart or in the periphery. Also being a male: Men have a higher risk of PAD than do women.

ANNOUNCER: And learning about common symptoms of PAD is key to helping your physician diagnose the disease.

ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: PAD can cause symptoms in a variety of parts of the body. One of the most common problems is blockage to the arteries in the legs, and the patient would experience cramps or pain in the legs with exercise, with walking or climbing stairs, for example; that we call claudication.

ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: Can PAD be mistaken for other conditions? Absolutely. The most common mistake is called pseudoclaudication. Pseudoclaudication is cramping of the muscles and is usually caused at rest, typically by spinal stenosis, that is, a narrowing of the spinal column, impinging on the nerves to the leg. And what that does is gives, oftentimes, a sensation of cramping that's not due to a lack of blood flow, but rather due to a nervous problem in the central nervous system.

ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: A lot of people complain of cold fingers and cold hands and cold feet, and the most common reason for that is cold weather. The old adage of, "If your hands are cold, put on your hat," is still true. If your body is cold, it'll constrict the blood vessels in your arms and your hands and your feet, and your hands and feet will be cold, not because of PAD, but because the blood vessels are constricted to some extent in a cold environment.

ANNOUNCER: If you think that you have the risk factors and possible symptoms of peripheral arterial disease, it's important to schedule a visit with your physician.

ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: One of the important and interesting problems with PAD is it's often silent for a long time before a patient is aware that there's a problem. When a symptom appears, it's usually very late in the process. That is, the blood vessels have been damaged and been narrowing for a relatively long period of time before a symptom appears.

ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: If you're experiencing symptoms that you think might be related to peripheral arterial disease, the best thing is to get in to see your doctor. Your doctor will take a simple physical exam, try to feel the pulses in your feet, also in your legs, at the groin level and at the knee level, and if pulses are present there, that pretty much rules out the possibility that PAD is present.