Walking after the leg and foot pain is a lot of middle-aged and elderly people often encounter the situation, perhaps most people feel that this is very normal, the age of osteoporosis well! But do you know? This soreness may indicate a potential disease – atherosclerotic occlusive disease of the lower extremities. The disease is characterized by an insidious onset in the early stages, but once it reaches the middle and late stages, it can cause severe pain and even necrosis in the affected limbs due to severe ischemia, and a significant number of patients have to undergo amputation, thus seriously affecting the quality of life. The disease is often associated with coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus and cerebrovascular disease, so there is a high mortality rate. Atherosclerotic occlusive disease of the lower extremities is a manifestation of systemic atherosclerosis in the lower extremities. The plaque caused by atherosclerosis attaches to the arterial wall and protrudes into the arterial lumen, and as the plaque continues to expand and secondary thrombosis forms, the artery becomes narrowed, the blood flow slows down and blood flow decreases. When the stenosis reaches a certain level, it can even completely block the arterial lumen. To raise awareness of the symptoms of this disease, middle-aged and elderly people can diagnose themselves in the early stages. The early manifestation of the disease is the soreness of the calf muscles after walking a certain distance, which can be relieved or disappeared if the patient sits down for a short nap, but the pain will be aggravated after walking a certain distance again, which is called “intermittent claudication”. This is due to the increased need for oxygen in the muscles of the lower limbs when walking, but due to insufficient blood supply from arterial stenosis, anaerobic metabolism occurs, and the metabolites generated such as lactic acid stimulate the nerves and cause soreness in the affected limbs, especially the calf muscles. The more severe the arterial stenosis, the shorter the walking distance the patient can tolerate, until finally losing the ability to walk. If there is often pain in the calf stomach after walking a few hundred meters, or cold feet, then you should look at the skin color of your feet when you wake up early and sleep late. The skin color of the feet is often whitish or purplish when the lower limbs are ischemic, and you can also feel the temperature of the feet, which will be colder if you have the disease. And you can feel the dorsal foot artery pulsation, if the artery pulsation is normal, you can rule out arterial occlusive disease, if the dorsal foot artery pulsation is very weak or disappeared, the possibility of suffering from this disease is very high. At this point, the patient must go to the hospital for treatment. At the later stage of the disease, the artery may even evolve from sclerosis and stenosis to complete occlusion, when the limb is in a state of extreme ischemia even at rest, the nerve endings produce severe pain called “resting pain”, especially at night and in spring and winter when the temperature is low. At the same time, the skin, muscle tissue ischemia makes its vitality gradually lost, and eventually the affected foot, especially the toe ulcers or black gangrene, recurrent infection of the necrotic parts often can not be controlled with general drugs, resulting in the so-called “old rotten feet”, then go to the hospital, has missed the best time for treatment, although it can partially improve the residual limb Although the blood flow of the remaining limb can be partially improved, the part of the limb that has already undergone necrosis has lost its normal vitality. As mentioned earlier, atherosclerosis is a diffuse lesion that often involves the arteries of the brain, heart, kidneys and other important organs, so prevention is particularly important. You should eat less fried food with high content of “saturated fatty acids”, shrimp, liver, kidney and other offal containing “high cholesterol” food, egg yolk and so on. The seafood, such as kelp, jellyfish and seaweed, is rich in iodine, iron, calcium, selenium and unsaturated fatty acids, which are recognized as having the effect of lowering cholesterol and preventing atherosclerosis. Adhere to the appropriate amount of physical activity, the amount of activity needs to be based on the original physical condition, to be gradual, should not be forced to make strenuous exercise, it is best to adhere to no less than 30 minutes of activity every day. According to individual conditions, jump rope, health care gymnastics, tai chi, cycling, walking, pruning flowers and grass, mopping the floor, dry housework, etc. Regular and appropriate physical exercise and physical work will help to prevent obesity, exercise the function of the heart and blood vessel regulation, and adjust blood lipid metabolism. In addition, it is very important to quit smoking, and timely detection and treatment of diabetes will also help prevent the development and deterioration of this disease. Once atherosclerotic occlusive disease of the lower extremities is diagnosed, treatment should be started as early as possible to avoid deterioration of the disease. Treatment includes medication, endoluminal intervention and surgery. In addition to taking glucose-lowering drugs, antihypertensive drugs and lipid-lowering drugs to control blood glucose, blood pressure and lipids, patients with severe claudication symptoms can also use artery-dilating drugs, anti-platelet drugs or anticoagulant drugs, the main function of these drugs is to control the continued development of the disease, improve limb ischemia, relieve pain and promote ulcer healing, but so far there is no drug that can restore the elasticity of diseased arteries However, none of the drugs have yet been able to restore the elasticity and recanalization of the diseased artery. The majority of patients can be effectively controlled with general and pharmacological treatment. Only some patients with severe disease, such as severe claudication that affects quality of life, “resting pain”, or even gangrenous limb ulcers, require endoluminal and surgical treatment. Endoluminal therapy, also known as interventional surgery, involves selecting a relatively superficial blood vessel in the body that is not diseased, such as the femoral artery at the root of the thigh or the artery at the elbow, and using a special puncture needle to pierce a small eye through which some special guide wires and catheters are inserted to reach the diseased vessel under X-ray surveillance. The purpose of the treatment is to enlarge the lumen of the artery. Endoluminal treatment is not an operation, and only a puncture needle is left in the body after the treatment, causing no harm to any tissues other than blood vessels. However, endoluminal therapy may not be suitable for all patients. Some patients with severe lesions that cannot be treated with endoluminal devices still require open surgery to unblock the stenosis, sometimes requiring the use of autologous or artificial blood vessels to “bypass” the stenosis and redirect blood through the new “bridge” to the distal vessel. Sometimes an autologous or artificial vessel “bypass” is needed to redirect blood through the new “bridge” to the distal vessel of the lesion. The rapid development of modern medical technology and drugs has greatly improved the rate of limb improvement and limb preservation. As long as attention is paid to early prevention, early detection and early treatment, I believe that the elderly will also have the same easy pace as young people.