Bengaluru: A city doctor, Shashank (name changed), a smoker, was leading a comfortable life ignoring the risk that his daily dose of cigarettes was carrying. He recently felt a sudden pain in his right lower limb, but ignored it thinking it was only a muscular pull. He took some pain-killers for the spasm to go away.
Gradually his pain became intolerable and his limbs started going numb, forcing him to rush to a hospital. Only then he came to know that he was pushing himself towards Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD), a dangerous condition that is triggered by smoking several cigarettes a day.
“PVD, a lesser known disease, is a silent killer. It is not properly diagnosed and is ignored most of the times. The fact that smoking causes cancer is well known, but very few know that smoking can also cause PVD, which can be fatal,” said Dr Kishore K.S., Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Sagar Hospitals.
“The common risk factors for PVD include smoking and tobacco chewing. Other factors are diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, obesity, physical inactivity, high blood levels, bad cholesterol and consumption of fat-rich diet,” he said.
Doctors say that people with coronary artery disease have higher tendency to develop peripheral vascular disease and vice versa. About 5 per cent of people above the age of 50 suffer from peripheral vascular disease, which is more common in men than in women.
“PVD can affect any artery in the body where there is a fat deposit. People with risk factors should periodically get themselves screened for PVD,” he said.
