![]() Wearing unsuitable footwear, such as pointy-toed shoes, high heels, or shoes without proper support, can induce fatigue and cramping in the foot muscles. The ongoing loss of fluids during sleep can further exacerbate nocturnal cramps. This risk increases when you exercise without adequate water intake. Insufficient fluid and electrolytes in your body can lead to muscle spasms and cramps. If you've been walking for hours or have started a new workout, muscle cramps could cause discomfort. That makes them contract, resulting in a cramp in your foot or leg. Intense physical activity can overstimulate your muscle fibers. But in the meantime, we’ll walk you through some reasons why your feet and legs could be cramping. Seeing your podiatrist is the best way to diagnose your foot or leg cramps. Muscle cramps of the feet and legs are most often felt in the arch of the foot and the calf of the leg but may include the toes. These intense spasms can be excruciating, and you may be in pain for several days. Muscle cramps occur when a muscle involuntarily tightens and won't relax. Diabetes, kidney disease, and smoking are the main reasons that PAD could become a limb- and life-threatening condition.Do you experience painful cramps in your feet or legs? Do you want to know the cause of your discomfort so that you can find pain relief? Sometimes, getting answers can be challenging because many conditions can cause foot and leg cramps. But she notes that very few people - fewer than 5% - will actually lose a limb due to PAD. “We usually reserve bypass for very severe cases, such as those where, if you don’t do something, the patient may lose his leg,” said Dr. The effects are long-lasting, but not permanent - so in younger patients, or patients who have health problems that may require a bypass surgery later on, physicians often advise delaying extensive surgical treatment for as long as possible. “It’s a quality-of-life decision,” she said. Shortell says that for most patients with claudication, deciding to have one of these surgical procedures is not unlike the decision to have knee replacement surgery. These are similar to the procedures used to open blood vessels in patients with advanced heart disease: opening a blocked vein by placing a balloon or stent into the vessel, or performing a bypass using a vein taken from the patient’s thigh.ĭr. Medications: These can be useful for some patients, but they do have important side effects that should be weighed carefully with your physician.įor people with severe symptoms - persistent, debilitating leg pain or wounds that won’t heal - surgical procedures can open up the blocked veins.Exercise is a very effective way to build new vessels and improve circulation - when the routine is maintained, of course. An exercise routine: This can be as simple as a daily walk.Smoking cessation: Better blood flow in the limbs is one of many benefits to smokers who quit.Shortell says three therapies are most often recommended: In those with mild to moderate symptoms, Dr. Choosing treatment (or not) often depends on how much your symptoms interfere with your life. ![]() “And you should definitely seek treatment and evaluation for that,” she said, as it’s a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.īut she says that PAD is not, in and of itself, a condition that requires aggressive treatment in all people. What’s most important about having peripheral artery disease (PAD) isn’t the PAD itself - it’s what it says about your risk for other, life-threatening conditions.Ĭynthia Shortell, MD, head of vascular surgery at Duke, says that being diagnosed with PAD means one thing for certain: You’ve got atherosclerosis - otherwise known as hardened arteries.
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