Medical Questions » Legs Questions » Question No. 575
| Question: | I have trouble walking distances—my legs ache, and when I stop, the pain goes. I have taken Vitamin E and lecithin every day to no avail. Can you recommend any treatment for this trouble? |
| Answer: | The pain you are describing in your legs is called claudication, and is caused by narrowing of the arteries to the legs, probably as a result of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). This in turn is caused by a combination of high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure over many years.
When you exercise, the muscles in your legs require more oxygen as energy. The oxygen is obtained from the blood. Because the arteries to the leg are hardened and narrowed, they cannot dilate to supply more blood, so the muscles (particularly in the calf) become starved of oxygen. The result is a painful leg that forces you to stop and rest, at which point the muscle does not need the extra oxygen of exercise, and can recover using the reduced blood supply available to it.
There are a number of drugs obtainable from doctors on prescription that are designed to open up the arteries, or allow the blood to flow more freely through them. These should be tried initially, but if they are unsuccessful, further investigations and special x-rays can be undertaken to find where the arteries are narrowed.
If only a limited blockage of the arteries is present, thete are operations available to bypass the blockage and allow a better blood flow to the leg muscles.
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