Peripheral Vascular Disease, Causes, Signs and Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment
Hello everyone, welcome to my today's post. In this post, I will writing on Peripheral Vascular Disease. It is important to know that Peripheral Vascular disease is a circulatory disorder that progresses to narrow and block blood vessels that are not in the heart and the brain. It is the obstruction of blood flow due to vessel damage within the peripheral vascular system. It is important to know that the Peripheral Vascular system is responsible for providing blood to arms, hand, feet, and legs, with the exception of the chest and abdomen, and off course, the except the heart and the brain. The Peripheral vascular system includes arteries, veins. When there are peripheral vascular diseases, it can affect the arteries (Peripheral Arterial Disease), and it can affect the veins (Peripheral Venous Disease), and it usually affects the lower extremities.
It is important to quickly state the function of the arteries and the veins. The arteries take oxygenated blood away from the heart to the body, and organ, while the veins carry de-oxygenated from the body to the heart.
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Peripheral Arterial Diseases is as a result of a blocking or a narrowing of the arteries as a result of a clot or a spasm. When there is no blood through the arteries, Ischemia begins and the vessels starts to die. Peripheral Arterial Diseases (PAD) can be caused majorly by Atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is a diseases that occurs as a result of a fibrophatic (fatty) plague that begins to form or accumulates in the muscular and/or elastic arteries, causing blockage and limiting the volume of blood reaching its destination, leading to ischemia.
A peripheral arterial disease is the Raynaud's Disease, which is a disease that has to do with Vasospasm of the artries which can be triggered by stress and cold. Another peripheral disease is the Buerger's Disease. The Buerger's disease affects both the Peripheral arteries and the Peripheral veins, where the vessel is damaged, causing clot to happen. This usually happens in the feet and the hand.
Risk factors leading to Atherosclerosis are age, male gender, women post menopause, hypertension, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, dyslipidemia. It Usually affects the lower Limb of the body and it could lead to necrosis of the extremities. This could lead to arterial narrowing by more than 70%, decreasing the blood flow to the extremities as a result of which would lead to clinical manifestations which would include ischemic pain, Pallor (pale) of the area, Paraesthasia as a result of lack of blood, Pulseless, and Putrid (necrosis) fleshes. Patients with PAD get relieved when they dangle their legs down, allowing blood to go through, and they feel pains when the legs are elevated. Patients experience rest pain which is sharp whenever they aren't doing anything with the affected area, patients with PAD experience intermittent claudication where there are severe pains in the extremities when doing activities. Pulse in the affected area would be very poor and or absent, and patients do not have edema with Peripheral Arterial Diseases.
Peripheral Venous Disease arises as a result of a damage or blockage (thrombosis), or stretch to the peripheral veins causing the blood not to flow back to the heart. The Veins carry de-oxygenated blood back to the heart for oxygenation. Peripheral Venous diseases will cause the person to experience Venous stasis ulcer. This can occur as a result of Varicase Veins, Superficial Vein Thrombosis, Deep Vein Thrombosis, Chronic Venous thrombosis. Risk factors associated with Peripheral Venous Disease are being female, pregnancy, sitting and/or standing for long period of time, obesity, advance age. Patients with PVD feel relieved when their extremities are elevated in a way that it allows blood to move away from the region, while they feel pains when their extremities are down. The patient starts to experience increase in the size of the extremities as a result of Edema, and the skin starts to lose its, color. Patients with PVD will experience dull, achy, and throbbing pain in the affected region, and elevating of the extremities makes the pain reduced.
Diagnosis and Treatment for Peripheral Vascular Diseases
Diagnosis for Peripheral Vascular Diseases are Doppler ultrasound which includes sound waves for imaging, Ankle-brachial index (ABI), which would be checking for ultrasound and blood pressure around the ankles and the arms, Treadmill exercise test, angiography which involves injecting dye into a catheter guiding through the arteries, magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), computerized tomography angiography (CTA), Ultrasonography, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Treatment of Atherosclerosis is usually done by treating the underlying condition, reduction of smoking, surgical operation to remove the clot, or bypass blockages. Drugs used to treat peripheral Arterial Diseases are cilostazol, and pentoxifylline which helps to increase blood flow in the region and relieve symptoms of claudication, Aspirin and Antiplatelet medicine will help prevent complications from Atherosclerosis.
Treatment of Peripheral Venous Treatment includes angioplasty which involves inserting a long tube to increase the blood flow, and bypass graft to reroute blood flow in the vein.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/overview-of-the-vascular-system
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/peripheral-arterial-disease-pad/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/peripheral-vascular-disease
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/atherosclerosis
https://accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?bookId=2129§ionId=192030522
https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/condition/atherosclerosis