ORTHOPEDICS/LEG, FOOT & ANKLE
Feeling a lower leg pain might be an annoying state.
When a person feels pain in his lower leg, he starts wondering if this pain is linked to a physical activity that worsened by night time, or this pain may not be connected to motion but it may be connected to a blood vessel or nerve difficulty.
Here are some of the lower leg pain frequent reasons.
Note that you should not rely on self-diagnose, expressly if your leg pain is acrute, sudden, or accompanied by inflammation.
Go straight to a doctor for a correct diagnosis, so you can start quick therapy to recover.
Reasons of lower leg pain
1 Muscle Tension
A tension or stress is a frequent cause of leg pain.
It usually occurs due to excess of activity that leads to overloading of a muscle, that regularly cause mild discomfort generating weakness, and inflammation as well.
Other sudden or serious damages can cause a muscle tear which is also expressively more painful.
Therapy of a muscle strain embraces muscle relaxation, ice applying to the painful zone, compressing the muscle with a bandage, and elevating the lower leg above the heart (to reduce inflammation).
2 Exercise-Linked Damages
In this case, pain is felt laterally the inside (medial) and back (posterior) part of the tibia bone where the calf muscles attach to the bone.
Shin splints, also called medial tibial tension disorder, is one frequent exercise-linked damage.
Shin splints habitually affect runners and people involved in sprinting or jumping sports.
Simple procedures can be used to treat shin splints such as:
- Stop the activity that led to the shin splints.
- Apply Ice on the pain zone
- Compress the pain zone with an elastic bandage.
- Stretch your lower leg muscles.
In addition, medicines may be recommended by the doctor to alleviate pain and decrease inflammation risk.
3 Tendonitis
Tendonitis, known as a frequent sport overuse damage, but can strike anyone, regardless of activity altitudes.
Tendonitis is a swelling surrounding a ligament, which is a strong enough that attaches a muscle to bone.
Deviations in foot structure such as flat feet or high arches can generate tendonitis.
Tendonitis is painful. Other signs may include inflammation and/or thickening of the ligament.
Other kinds of tendonitis that may cause lower leg pain are commonly Achilles tendonitis and posterior tibial tendonitis.
Therapy of tendonitis is relaxation, ice application, compression, and elevation, in addition to Anti-inflammatory medicines.
4 Vein Complications
The veins of the legs return blood back to the heart. When vein complications happen, leg is suffering an inflammation called (Edema) accompanied with pain or tenderness.
One frequent vein complication is venous deficiency, which can lead to varicose veins and repeated leg inflammation.
A serious reason of a lower leg pain is known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
A DVT is an accumulation in a leg vein that can break off and swing to the lungs.
DVT Signs frequently embrace inflammation, warmth, and/or redness of the calf.
A doctor should diagnose DVT with an ultrasound and regularly prescribes a blood-thinning medicine to avoid the current mass from getting larger.
5 Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)
Peripheral artery disease (PAD) occurs when blood flowing to the leg is compromised because of thinning one or more leg arteries.
PAD is connected with lower leg pain and can lead to a cold and commonly pale limb with pain increase.
Other symbols of a peripheral arterial disease comprise injuries that do not heal with shiny skin, and a loss of hair near the damaged zone.
Note that smoking, heart disease, and diabetes are factors that upsurge a person’s chance of developing PAD.
PAD therapy recommend some lifestyle modifications like quitting smoking, taking a medicine to lower cholesterol levels (called a statin) with some specific exercises.
Antiplatelet therapy like aspirin or Plavix (clopidogrel) is recommended as well.
6 Pregnancy-Related Leg Spasms
Foot and leg difficulties are frequent for pregnant women, expressly in the last stage of pregnancy.
It is due to increasing in weight plus hormonal modifications.
This causes an inclination and the leg muscles working a little harder to maintain foot stability.
Besides, painful leg spasms in the pregnancy period may be caused by blood volume modifications or from sciatic nerve compression with the uterus expanding.
Therapy for leg spasms is still undecided. Occasionally, oral magnesium and/or calcium are recommended.
Other therapies that may be supportive embrace massage, stretching, and applying heat.
7 Spine Complications
The spine may cause shooting pain when compression of the leg nerves occurs.
The pain classically begins at the buttock and is felt on the side and back of the leg.
Frequently called sciatica, this kind of pain may be caused by an herniated spinal disc or irritation from a tight muscle, such as seen with piriformis disorder.
8 Underlying Health Situations
Pain in a person’s leg may be also linked to an underlying health difficulty.
Leg pain can also be linked to autoimmune sicknesses like rheumatoid arthritis or sicknesses that affect the nervous system (sclerosis).
Some medicines like diuretics (“water pills”) or statins (drugs used to lower “bad” cholesterol levels) can cause lower leg spasms.
A final word
There are many reasons for lower leg pain ranging from benign, mild muscle tensions to more serious situations like blocked blood vessels.
Finally, be certain to get your lower leg pain evaluated by a specialist.