FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Eight to 12 million people in the United States are affected by Peripheral Arterial Disease, or PAD.
It’s a condition that can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, but it often goes undiagnosed.
Avid marathon runner Debbie Danto is the picture of health.
When she started experiencing numbness in her right leg, she initially wrote it off.
“I was thinking, I’m training, I’m running a lot of miles, this is normal but kind of not normal because it was only in my right leg and not my left leg, so I knew something was going on, but I just thought my right leg is weaker,” Danto said.
But by April of 2023, the pain became unbearable.
“It was like the worst Charlie Horse of my life. It was just such a tightness and my foot was numb, the blood flow just wasn’t getting to my lower leg and my foot,” Danto said.
She was ultimately diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease.
Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez Zoppi, Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery with Memorial Healthcare, said it’s typically caused by a hardening of the arteries that take blood to the extremities.
“What that means is the patients can eventually progress from having pain just as they walk and that can progress to having pain at rest that wakes them up in the middle of the night, and the ultimate result could be tissue loss or ulcers or open wounds that can lead to gangrene and, ultimately, they can end up losing their limbs,” he said.
Rodriguez Zoppi said initial treatment involves medication and lifestyle modifications, which includes quitting smoking, losing weight, controlling blood pressure and diabetes, and eating a healthy diet.
If those approaches fail to help, a procedure to open up the blocked artery or a vein bypass surgery may be necessary.
“And we can do that using the patients’ own vein or we can use an artificial vein,” Rodriguez Zoppi said.
In Danto’s case, the condition was caused by an injury to her leg years ago that damaged a major vein.
She recently underwent a bypass procedure using one of her own healthy veins.
“I know this is what the doctors are telling me -- that if all goes well then I’ll have 100 percent of the circulation back,” Danto said.
Experts say many people who experience symptoms of PAD don’t report them because they believe they’re a natural part of aging.
It’s important that if you experience pain or cramping in the legs to be sure to have a complete work up to rule out PAD.