Peripheral Artery Disease
According to the American Heart Association, the current treatment of peripheral artery disease should always include medications combined with lifestyle changes to reduce the burden of the disease and the cardiovascular adverse events associated with this disease. It features poor blood flow to your legs which triggers symptoms such as heavyweight sensation and dull thigh pain.
Thus, doctors recommend lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation, which may require pharmacological therapy to reduce the withdrawal syndrome. Patients may also need lipid-lowering treatment with statins because if they maintain high LDL levels, atherosclerosis will continue reducing the blood flow to their limbs. Another condition that requires attention in these patients is hypertension, and they should be controlled to see real changes and to reduce the cardiovascular risk associated with peripheral artery disease. Diabetes is one of the many problems related to peripheral artery disease, and when patients maintain high glucose levels for a long time, their arteries start to suffer. That’s why glucose control is also important to improve the symptoms.
As noted above, treatment of this condition is not always immediate, and the changes should be done progressively and build up with time. Thus, patience and perseverance are essential to treat this chronic disease.