What causes cold pain in the calves

If you experience cold and painful calves, you should pay attention to it. The main reason for this phenomenon is some disease-related reasons. In our daily life, we often hear about heart or cerebral infarction, but we have never heard of leg infarction. In fact, if a blood clot occurs in the leg, it will lead to poor blood circulation, which can easily cause symptoms of cold and painful calves.

What causes cold pain in the calves

The earliest symptom of "leg infarction" is often "intermittent claudication", which is manifested as: after walking a certain distance, calf weakness, numbness, soreness, and even pain occur for no other reason, and the person is forced to stop walking. The symptoms disappear after standing and resting for a few minutes, and reappear after walking a certain distance again. At the beginning, the patient may be able to walk 300-500 meters. As the lower limb arteriosclerosis lesions worsen, the claudication distance will also shorten, and may even develop to the point where the patient can only walk 50 meters or more than 10 meters.

This phenomenon is caused by ischemia of the distal lower limb muscles due to lower limb arteriosclerosis, stenosis or occlusion of the lumen. After walking for a while, the calf muscles' nutritional needs increase, oxygen consumption increases, and metabolic products also increase. At this time, the diseased blood vessels are no longer able to bear the increased blood supply task, and the muscles suffer from ischemia, hypoxia, and accumulation of metabolic products, causing pain. After standing still and resting, the blood supply to the limbs gradually improves and the symptoms disappear naturally.

"Leg infarction" is a serious disease in vascular surgery. Research data shows that the incidence of leg infarction among people over 60 years old in China is 18%, and the trend is increasing. Clinically, "leg obstruction" is mainly manifested in the blockage of veins and arteries, and venous obstruction is the well-known "varicose veins". It is generally treated with medication and wearing varicose vein stockings during concentrated activities during the day. When resting and sleeping at night, the varicose vein stockings are taken off and the legs are slightly raised.

Conservative medical treatment for early stage of arterial blockage

And remember to wash your feet with warm water instead of scalding them with overheated water, as that will only have the opposite effect. When cutting your toenails, don't cut them too short and be careful not to break them. On weekdays, even if it hurts, you should insist on walking for at least 1 hour. In the later stages, minimally invasive interventional treatment may be required, such as implanting stents and opening blood vessels; in severe cases, surgical treatment may be required.