Symptoms of Peripheral Artery Disease

The classic symptoms of peripheral artery disease (PAD) are pain, achiness, fatigue, burning, or discomfort in the muscles of your feet, calves, or thighs. These symptoms usually appear during walking or exercise and go away after several minutes of rest. Only about half of the individuals with peripheral artery disease have symptoms. Almost always, symptoms are caused by the leg muscles not getting enough blood, including:

• Painful cramping in your hip, thigh or calf muscles after activity, such as walking or climbing stairs (intermittent claudication)
• Leg numbness or weakness
• Coldness in your lower leg or foot, especially when compared with the other side
• Sores on your toes, feet or legs that won't heal
• A change in the color of your legs
• Hair loss or slower hair growth on your feet and legs
• Slower growth of your toenails
• Shiny skin on your legs
• No pulse or a weak pulse in your legs or feet
• Erectile dysfunction in men

When peripheral artery disease becomes severe, you may have:

• Impotence
• Pain and cramps at night
• Pain or tingling in the feet or toes, which can be so severe that even the weight of clothes or bed sheets is painful
• Pain that is worse when you raise the leg and improves when you dangle your legs over the side of the bed
• Skin that looks dark and blue
• Sores that do not heal