With the advent of winter, many older people like Yang Lao, began to appear after the activity of leg pain, and even walk with a limp, many people tend to think of it as cold, “old cold legs” attack. But this “old cold legs” in the end is how a thing? It is atherosclerotic occlusive disease of the lower extremities that flares up or worsens every year as the temperature drops. Experts in vascular surgery remind that this disease needs to be checked and treated in the hospital as soon as possible. First, what is atherosclerosis of the lower extremities? The arteries of human body are like an oil pipeline, arterial blood flows in the arteries every moment, which is like crude oil in human body, and the heart is like an oil pump, which continuously conveys the energy to various tissues and organs through different pipelines, and the pipelines leading to the lower limbs mainly include the thoracic aorta, the abdominal aorta, the iliac arteries, the femoral arteries, the N-arteries, and the arteries of the lower limbs. Lower extremity atherosclerotic occlusive disease refers to the formation of atherosclerotic plaque on the inner wall of the arteries, as the plaque continues to grow, the lumen gradually narrowed, the smoothness of the pipeline is affected, the blood flow to the lower extremities will be reduced, narrowed to a certain extent or even completely blocked, the supply of blood to the lower extremities can not meet the needs of the lower limbs, ischemic symptoms will occur. Second, lower extremity atherosclerosis occlusive disease is common? Lower extremity atherosclerosis occlusive disease belongs to the category of vascular surgery, is a very common disease. In China, with the improvement of people’s living standards, changes in dietary structure, and population aging, the number of cases diagnosed with lower limb atherosclerosis obliterans has been increasing year by year. There are currently about 20 million patients in China, and it is estimated that the number will continue to increase by about 600,000 each year. The disease is more common in Europe and the United States, according to the literature, 3-10% of people under 70 years of age, and 15-20% of people over 70 years of age. The majority of patients with this disease are male, mostly in the elderly population. What causes lower extremity atherosclerotic occlusive disease? The occurrence of lower limb atherosclerosis is closely related to lifestyle. Insufficiently healthy diet, sweet tooth, preference for foods high in saturated fat such as red meat, excessive intake of salt, lack of exercise, overweight prone to diabetes, hypertension or hyperlipidemia. Diabetes, smoking, hypertension and hyperlipidemia are the four major killers of lower extremity arterial disease. Diabetes can increase the incidence of lower extremity atherosclerotic occlusive disease 3-5 times, and, combined with diabetes patients, lesions tend to be much more serious than other patients. Smoking is recognized as a killer of human health, the same smoking can cause arterial constriction, prompting arterial narrowing, accelerate the formation of atherosclerosis, aggravate limb ischemia, is one of the main risk factors for lower extremity atherosclerosis. Long-term high blood pressure can cause vascular damage, easy to form plaque caused by narrowing. High blood lipids cause increased blood viscosity, also prone to blood vessel narrowing, leading to lower limb atherosclerotic occlusive disease. The environment is also closely related to the occurrence of lower extremity atherosclerotic occlusive disease. Cold and wet environment is easy to develop, so the incidence rate is higher in the north, the weather becomes cold, the blood vessel contraction, will also lead to the aggravation of the original lesions, therefore, the lower limb arteriosclerosis patients often in the winter symptoms deterioration. Fourth, what are the symptoms of lower limb atherosclerosis occlusive disease? Lower limb arteriosclerosis occlusive disease early often manifested as cold, numbness, leg muscle spasm, commonly known as “cramp”, due to these early symptoms are not typical, it is easy to confuse with other diseases, so often be mistaken by the patient is the old man calcium deficiency or lumbar spondylosis, misdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of the disease, delayed their own condition. Therefore, patients with these symptoms should be reminded to go to the Vascular Surgery Department of regular hospitals to confirm the diagnosis through scientific examination. If the lesion continues to develop, claudication symptoms will appear. Doctors call the claudication caused by this disease “intermittent claudication”, characterized by walking about hundreds of meters to dozens of meters, lower limb pain, usually manifested as soreness of the calf muscles, but also other parts of the lower limb pain, the patient is forced to stop and rest for a period of time after the pain is relieved, and then continue to walk, continue to walk, continue the activities of the pain can be The pain may recur with continued activity. With the aggravation of the lesion, the distance of the appearance of pain is getting shorter and shorter, from several hundred meters to the last dozen meters, or even a few meters, need timely treatment. If the symptoms of claudication are still not diagnosed and treated, and the lesion continues to deteriorate, there will be “resting pain”, even when the patient does not exercise there will still be pain in the lower limbs, especially in the night time when sleeping is worse, making the patient sleep and eat insecurely and mentally nervous. At this stage, the patient must hurry and actively treat the disease, otherwise the disease will enter the advanced stage. After entering the advanced stage, even if the foot is broken a little bit is not easy to heal, the lower limbs gradually appear necrosis, and ultimately can only amputate the necrotic limbs, serious or even life-threatening.