High cholesterol is a condition that can seriously affect your heart health. It is usually triggered due to poor lifestyle choices, including lack of exercise, excessive drinking and smoking and eating a high-fat diet.
This health condition may gradually build in your arteries without showing any signs. In the long-run, these deposits may reduce blood flow via your arteries, leading to several health problems like heart disease, chest pain and strokes. It is important to know that there are two kinds of cholesterol – good cholesterol (also known as low-density lipoprotein) and bad cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein).
The good cholesterol picks up excess cholesterol from your body and takes it back to your liver. The bad cholesterol clogs your arteries due to plaque build-up. This puts pressure on your heart.
READ | What is high cholesterol? Know signs, symptoms to look out for
Plaque is a waxy substance made with cholesterol and other substances which reduce the blood flow. The narrow blood vessels may appear via warning signs in your legs, leading to peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in the lower extremities.
PAD can affect your walk as it triggers mild to severe pain in your legs. This pain can suddenly arise like an ache when you stand and walk. While the pain could be severe in one leg, both the legs may be affected due to poor blood circulation.
Besides leg pain, PAD can induce several other changes in your body. These include:
- Loss of hair from legs and feet
- Numbness or weakness in legs
- Brittle and slow-growing toenails
- Ulcers on feet and legs which do not heal
- Colour of legs turning pale or blue
- Muscles in legs start shrinking
In certain cases, PAD symptoms may hint at some serious health issue which needs to be treated immediately. Hence, it is crucial to consult your doctor if you experience pain in your legs while walking.
