Risk Factors
- Smoking Sedentary lifestyle
- Obesity Family history of PAD
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
If you experience any of the following, please see your physician right away:
- Pain in the muscles of the legs while walking, climbing stairs and/or during exercise. Pain normally lessens when resting.
- Changes in color of the skin usually on the feet and lower legs.
- Cooler skin on the feet and/or toes as compared to the other leg or to the rest of your body.
- Wounds on the feet or lower legs that do not heal or heal very slowly
- Pain in the feet or toes at night
Vascular Interventions
Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) Evaluation and Treatment
PAD is a build up of plaque in the vessels that carry blood from your heart to your legs, head, arms, kidneys, and stomach. Overtime, the plaque hardens and narrows limiting the blood flow to vital organs and the arms and legs.
Our Interventional Radiologists will use angioplasty to treat the occluded vessel(s).
Angioplasty
Interventional radiologists use this procedure to treat blocked or semi-blocked arteries in the arms, legs, and kidneys.. Interventional radiologists actually developed and pioneered angioplasty and their success with this procedure spurred development of most of the interventional procedures offered today. An interventional radiologist uses angioplasty and stent placement to open blocked arteries. In this procedure, the radiologist inserts a small balloon that is attached to a small tube, called a catheter, into a small nick in the skin. He then moves the balloon to the blocked artery and inflates the balloon to open the blockage. Many times he will also insert a stent after the balloon has been inflated to keep the blood flowing through the artery.
