Vascular Disease

What is vascular disease?

Vascular diseases are conditions that affect the blood vessels that carry nutrients and oxygen throughout your body and eliminate wastes from tissues. Vascular issues may arise because of built-up plaque lining blood vessel walls. This plaque can block or slow blood flow, causing bothersome and sometimes dangerous symptoms. 

What are the different types of vascular disease?

Examples of vascular disease include:

• Peripheral artery disease (PAD): affects peripheral arteries (vessels outside of the heart), causing narrowing and reduced blood flow
• Venous diseases: affect your veins, damaging their valves (examples include varicose veins, spider veins, and May-Thurner syndrome)
• Carotid artery disease: affects two main carotid arteries in your neck that supply nutrients to your brain, blocking or narrowing these arteries
• Blood clots: form when blood coagulates (becomes a jelly-like, solid mass) and blocks vessels
• Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD): causes abnormal cell growth and narrowed arteries
• Aortic aneurysm: abnormal bulge in the aorta, a main blood vessel leaving your heart
• Lymphedema: causes fluid buildup due to damaged, missing, or impaired lymph vessels or nodes
• Vasculitis: causes inflamed blood vessels, increasing the risk of an aneurysm

Vascular diseases affect veins that carry blood toward your heart, arteries that carry blood away from the heart, lymph vessels that balance fluids, and capillaries that link veins and arteries.

What are the symptoms of vascular disease?

Vascular diseases can cause:

• Leg swelling, aching, heaviness, throbbing, cramping, or itching
• Skin color changes
• Ulcers
• Leg fatigue
• Nausea or vomiting
• Weight loss
• High blood pressure
• Red, blue, pale, or white fingers or toes
• Tingling
• Numbness
• Pain or heaviness in your arms or legs
• Head, neck, face, or eye pain
• Visible veins
• Leg tenderness, warmth, or swelling

You might not have any symptoms until a stroke or another complication develops. 

Some risk factors for vascular disease are poor dietary habits, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

How are vascular diseases diagnosed and treated?

Your specialist diagnoses a vascular disease by completing a physical exam, reviewing your medical history and lifestyle, and completing vascular imaging — such as a vascular ultrasound or angiography procedure.

Treating vascular disease may include:

• Diet changes
• Exercise
• Not smoking
• Medications
• Sclerotherapy
• Laser therapy
• Compression stockings
• Physical therapy
• Healthy weight management
• Diabetes and other chronic disease management
• Vein removal procedures
• Surgery

Follow up with the Lorven Heart and Vascular Institute, LLC, experts to ensure an effective outcome.

Schedule a vascular disease evaluation at Lorven Heart and Vascular Institute, LLC, by phone or request one online today.