Two years ago, Aunt Zheng suddenly felt that the left leg hurt when she was walking . At first, she was worried and thought it was a disease, but then she thought that she was already in her sixties and it was normal for her to have some minor problems with her legs. In addition, her friends who suffer from "old cold legs" around her were similar to her symptoms, which made Aunt Zheng confirm that she was "old cold legs" and just need to pay attention to keeping warm.
However, the symptoms of Aunt Zheng's leg pain in the past two years have not been relieved. In recent days, the situation has worsened , and she cannot even perform daily exercise. In desperation, she had to go to the hospital with her daughter.
But what Aunt Zheng didn’t expect was that after the doctor asked her to do lower limb vascular ultrasound, she would also have to do lumbar spine CT examination . Just as the two were puzzled, the doctor told Aunt Zheng: "The lumbar spine CT showed a herniated "block" pressing the nerves. You are lumbar disc herniation , and you need surgery."
Aunt Zheng could not accept this fact because her old friend just did not treat herniation in time and was paralyzed in bed. She kept asking the doctor: "Doctor, are you mistaken? I'm just cold legs, but my legs hurt. What does the disease of the legs have to do with the waist? ? ?"
Do you have the same questions when you see this? In fact, Aunt Zheng knew from the beginning that the symptoms of leg pain must be due to a physical problem, but she mistakenly regarded this reminder as "old cold legs". Do you know why leg pain is caused by herniated lumbar disc?
1. Leg pain is not necessarily "old cold legs"
Children of the elderly in the family must know that whenever the weather gets cold or rainy, some elderly people will feel their legs hurt and they limp when walking. This may be because suffers from old cold legs , but not all leg pain is old cold legs .
Old cold legs are also called knee osteoarthritis, which are often found in middle-aged and elderly people. As we age, the human organs will degenerate, including the cartilage of joint .
You can imagine that car tires will also have problems after being used for a long time, let alone joint cartilage that is often movable? When degeneration occurs, the cartilage of the joint will become thinner, lose its elasticity or even break . Moreover, the soft tissue of the knee joint is thinner and has poor ability to resist cold. If you catch cold, you may experience symptoms such as leg pain and cold legs and feet. This symptom sometimes recurs and worsens, causing inconvenience to the patient's life.
However, there are many reasons for leg pain, not necessarily all old cold legs.
For example, the lumbar disc herniation caused by Aunt Zheng is the herniated "block" that stimulates paravertebral sympathetic nerve fibers or sinus nerves and sympathetic nerve fibers , causing vascular contraction of the lower limbs, and leg pain and cold lower limbs. However, you don’t need to worry too much. Generally speaking, most patients can relieve their symptoms after conservative treatment, and only surgical treatment is required when the condition is serious.
This shows that when you feel pain in your legs, it may be a warning from the disease. We must make clear judgments to cure faster. For example, Aunt Zheng thought it was old cold legs, so she kept her legs warm, but what she didn't know was that layer after layer of warmth was not only not helpful to the condition, but also may cause insufficient blood supply to the legs and even require amputation.
So besides leg pain is a signal sent to us by the disease, do you know what other leg abnormalities do you know?
2. Be careful! There are three abnormalities on the legs, which may be the warning signal from the disease
Legs are an important pillar of the body . Only by keeping the legs healthy can we travel, enjoy the beautiful scenery, and enjoy life. However, when there is an abnormality in this pillar, can you think that this is the signal from the disease?
Intermittent limp
The so-called Intermittent limp lines means that when we walk for a while, we will feel pain in our legs and need a rest to walk the next section of our road. If you have such symptoms, be careful, this may be lower limb arteriosclerosis occlusion .
You may be unfamiliar with this disease. Simply put, sclerotic plaque appears in the blood vessel duct leading to the lower limbs, blocking the blood vessel duct and narrowing the lumen, thus reducing the blood flow of through the lower limbs, and symptoms of lower limb pain and numbness appear. In the end, the patient needs to take a rest after walking for a while.
However, don’t underestimate this disease. In addition to pain and numbness, advanced patients also have resting pain . The lower limbs will also experience pain when they are inactive. When is severe, the lower limbs will also be necrotic , and they have to amputate the limbs. According to clinical studies, if you suffer from lower limb arteriosclerosis and are not treated in time, the mortality rate within 5 years after the onset of can reach 20% !
So beware of intermittent limp. Some people may ask how to judge? In fact, in addition to pain, arteriosclerosis and occlusion in the lower limbs will also cause the temperature of the lower limbs in to be lower than that of other parts of . In addition, we can also use to press the artery on the instep to observe whether there is a sensation of beating. However, in order not to delay treatment, it is recommended to go directly to the hospital to consult a doctor and do vascular color ultrasound in time to treat the symptomatic treatment.
unilateral lower limb swelling
Some people think that it is just a varicose vein caused by standing for a long time. In fact, you should also be alert to the possibility of left iliac vein compression syndrome . Then why does this disease cause swelling in the legs?
Before the blood flows into the vena cava, the left iliac vein of is attacked by the iliac artery and sacral potassium , which will block the blood return of the originally normal lower limb vein, causing symptoms such as limb edema.
However, because is located in the iliac vein of , coupled with the interference of intestinal gas, it is difficult to diagnose B-ultrasound. If it is treated as a varicose vein, the patient's legs will not be relieved, and it may even induce the formation of deep vein thrombosis. At this time, if the patient's lower limbs are frequently moved by , it may cause the deep vein thrombosis to loosen and fall off. These venous thrombosis will eventually enter the pulmonary artery, causing pulmonary embolism.
Blue veins on the legs hiccup
In summer, many people choose to wear shorts and short skirts for the sake of coolness. However, if you observe carefully, you will find that some people have veins on their legs. Some people who like to exercise will feel that the veins are protruding and sexy, so they don’t care. However, at this time, you must consider whether it is Varicocele veins .
Although our legs are so flat and smooth, in fact, under such skin, there are many venous networks that "work hard" . They will transport the blood from to the heart after is moved. However, when venous return is blocked, the blood volume in the veins increases. Over time, the veins will slowly expand, and blue veins that can be seen in the naked eye will appear on the legs.
Although this disease is not obvious in the early stage, if you do not pay attention for a long time, the blood vessels will highlight the skin surface like an earthworm. If it continues, the skin of the calf will have nutritional changes, such as skin nodules, pigmentation, etc. In severe cases, it will also cause skin ulcers and erosion, affecting the patient's quality of life.
3. Do these well to make our legs healthier
When abnormalities appear on the legs, we must consider whether to issue warnings for diseases. We all know that legs are very important, so what should we do to make our legs healthier?
Exercise our legs
This is very important for middle-aged and elderly people. As the saying goes, " people get older, their legs first." . When we grow to a certain age, the muscles in the whole body will become loose. The legs that are often used are not as good as before, so we need to exercise our legs in time.
Usually, we can do leg swinging . Hold the wall with one hand, shake the calf and then raise the toes upwards, and then continue to swing backwards. Then, we should make the toes backwards, pay attention to straightening the surface of our feet and swing forwards. Each movement of can be done for 2 to 3 minutes. However, it depends on your physical condition and do not exercise blindly.
In addition to this, you can also try squats.When we squat, the muscles in our legs and buttocks are squeezed, and blood will flow back to the heart quickly. When we get up, blood will quickly return to the lower limbs , which helps promote blood circulation and increase muscle strength of the lower limbs.
However, be careful that squats under should be slow and should be fast. Otherwise, it is easy to damage knee . In addition, you should do what you can. The elderly should follow the principle of gradual progress. You can do 4 groups of every day, each group of 15 . If there is no abnormality in the body, you can increase the amount appropriately.
Don't rub your legs randomly after sitting for a long time
When we feel s legs swelling and pain after sitting for a long time, we will subconsciously rub our legs. The movements that seem very reasonable may cause serious consequences.
But this does not mean that all leg discomfort cannot be rubbed. Generally speaking, we may experience leg swelling when standing for a long time. This is actually caused by nerve muscle tension. Proper rubbing of legs can relieve pain. However, when we sit for a long time, it is easy to accumulate venous blood in the lower limbs and form venous thrombosis, and swelling and pain will occur in our legs.
If we rub venous thrombosis, since is superficial vein , the blood clot may fall off from the blood vessel wall. As the blood flows into the heart, under the contraction of the heart, the blood clot will be shot into the lungs to form a pulmonary embolism, and acute large pulmonary embolism may be life-threatening.
References:
[1] Niu Dongping. 60 squats every day to nourish legs and fight aging [J]. Family Medicine : Happy Health, 2019(3):1.
[2] Zhang Ru, Wang Xin. Varicocele, when is the best surgery? [J]. Public Health, 2020.
[3] Guo Zhonghua. Beware of the diseases hidden behind "people's legs grow old first" [J]. Family Medicine : First Half Month, 2019(2):2.
