10/12/2026
A familiar pattern in PAD: the diagnosis arrives years after the first symptom.
It often starts as calf pain on walking, charted as back trouble, arthritis or getting older. The patient walks less to avoid the pain, so the symptom seems to improve. Then a small foot wound appears and doesn't heal, and the first vascular evaluation happens at the stage of chronic limb-threatening ischemia.
Every step of that path had an earlier off-ramp: a pedal pulse exam, a resting ABI, a question about how far the patient can walk before stopping.
If a patient's leg pain has been explained away more than once, call (615) 321-6100 to refer for a PAD evaluation.