Blood
Leg pain, aches and weakness can be signs of blood vessel blockages, but seniors may miss the symptoms
Oct
Raising awareness for Peripheral Artery Disease
Conditions like diabetes or heart disease can lead to a tricky condition called Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) that often leads to amputation surgery. FOX 5 Medical Team’s Beth Galvin spoke to a family whose matriarch suffered from it and is now taking the steps to teach others how to prevent it from happening.
This is a screening tool to detect blockages that could be caused by peripheral artery disease, or PAD, offered by the Save Legs, Change Lives campaign.
Kimberly Campbell, 47, likes what she is seeing.
“This could change lives, and I definitely feel like it would have changed hers,” Campbell says.
But Dr. Edward Wingfield, an interventional cardiologist with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey says many of us don’t know much about PAD.
There are warning signs including numbness, painful cramping, or weakness in the legs, foot or leg wounds, slow toenail growth and shiny skin or hair loss on legs.
Dr. Wingfield says people can overlook the symptoms, and PAD is often just the tip of the iceberg.
Campbell says her mother was diagnosed with diabetes in her late forties, or early fifties.
That’s exactly what happened, her daughter says.
“She had worn a shoe that had rubbed against her foot, and she had some wounds on her shins,” Campbell says. “For years, she went back and forth to the wound care center.”
It didn’t help.
