Do I have arthritis?
Probably. But in many cases, especially in diabetics and patients with a strong smoking history, that is not the root cause of the pain. We will listen to the pulses, and if there are abnormalities in this examination, I will order an on site screening dopplar to rule out extensive or significant arterial and venous disease.
Most people are aware that cholesterol is bad (especially LDL) because it leads to heart disease. Lesser known vascular diseases include peripheral arterial disease of the legs and feet. This is a common finding in our office which can be identified with on site arterial dopplar testing and on physical examination with the "claudication" history.
Often times patients will present with generalized leg and foot pains which are not very responsive to NSAIDs. There may be significant color changes like on the right, or none like on the left of the above pictures.
For significant enough findings, we will refer for angiography, and the vascular interventionalist may be able to open the vessels without open surgery in many cases, which reduces or eliminates much of the pain associated with vascular disease. This also effectively is a form of limb salvage, which ultimately prevents leg amputations.
Dr Timm, DPM FACFAS
Board Certified by the American Board of Podiatric Surgery
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