Leg Pain After Exercise: What Does It Mean?
There’s soreness, there’s injury, and then there’s pain due to an underlying health problem. This blog dissects the common causes of post-exercise leg pain to help you know when and where to get help.
Smoking and PAD: What You Should Know
If you smoke, you need to know about peripheral artery disease (PAD).
It occurs when the arteries outside your heart and brain narrow, reducing blood flow to your limbs, particularly your legs. If left unchecked, PAD can lead to severe complications like amputation or even death, so understanding the connection between smoking and PAD could save your life.
Here, Dr. Hadi Shalhoub and our Advanced Vascular Solutions team explain what you need to know about PAD and its dangerous link with tobacco.
The facts about peripheral artery disease
PAD affects millions worldwide, and many don’t even know it. It happens when fat builds up in the artery walls, limiting blood flow to your limbs. The reduced blood flow can cause pain, typically in your legs, and increases your risk of heart attack, stroke, and other severe health issues.
It’s easy to miss the signs of PAD because they can be subtle. For example, you might experience leg pain while walking, which eases with rest, or you could have numbness, weakness, or sores on your legs or feet that don’t heal.
What you need to know about risk factors
Disease risk factors are characteristics or conditions that increase your likelihood of developing a disease. They can be uncontrollable, like age and family history, or modifiable, like diet, exercise, and smoking habits. Identifying and managing your risk factors can reduce your chances of developing severe health conditions, including PAD.
The risk factors for PAD are diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, but smoking tops them all.
How smoking increases PAD risk
Smoking is one of the top risk factors for developing PAD because of the harmful chemicals in tobacco. When you smoke, your body absorbs thousands of chemicals that damage your blood vessels and restrict blood flow.
Nicotine
Nicotine, the addictive chemical in tobacco, is a vasoconstrictor, meaning it narrows your blood vessels. Narrow vessels hinder blood flow and make it harder for your arteries to deliver oxygen-rich blood to your limbs. Over time, this can lead to the development and progression of PAD.
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide grabs onto the hemoglobin in your blood, reducing its oxygen-carrying capacity. Lack of oxygen strains your arteries and exacerbates the symptoms of PAD, making it a dangerous combination with nicotine.
Tar
Tar in tobacco smoke contains several carcinogens and toxins that damage your arteries. This damage leads to the buildup of fatty deposits, known as plaque, which can narrow and harden your arteries.
This process, called atherosclerosis, is a primary cause of PAD.
What happens when you quit
The benefits of quitting your daily intake of tobacco start almost immediately and continue to grow over time. Here’s what happens when you stop smoking:
Instant health improvements
Within minutes of quitting, your heart rate and blood pressure drop. Within a few days, carbon monoxide levels in your blood return to normal, improving your oxygen levels. Your circulation improves right away, and you may even notice that walking becomes easier and less painful.
Long-term health improvements
Over the long term, quitting smoking can significantly reduce your risk of developing PAD. According to the American College of Cardiology, about 80% of all PAD patients are either current or former smokers.
Quitting not only reduces your risk of PAD but other health problems as well, including heart disease and stroke.
What to do about PAD
In addition to kicking your nicotine habit, there’s a lot you can do to battle PAD. Dr. Shalhoub can help you develop a diet and exercise program that supports your vascular system.
He can also prescribe medication, such as anticoagulants, to prevent dangerous blood clots from forming or thrombolytic therapy to break up existing clots.
Angioplasty can widen narrowed arteries and remove plaque, and bypass surgery can run a router around the blockage and keep your blood moving.
If you’re a current or former smoker and are concerned about PAD, call Advanced Vascular Solutions in Sebastian or Melbourne, Florida, to schedule a consultation with Dr. Shalhoub.
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