What's That Mysetrious Pain In My Left? Leg Is It Dangerous?
Very often, when your left leg hurts, it's because of some physical activity, like a sports injury, or excessive exercise of certain muscles. Doing the same motion, or repeating and for a long time can cause painful wear and tear in the left leg (and the right leg too, of course).
But left leg pain can also signal some serious health threats that require medical attention. This video focuses mostly on those.
Some forms of leg pain can be the first sign of heart disease, when that pain comes from blood vessel blockages (medical term: claudication).
Claudication typically causes leg pain during a physicalactivity, such as walking. The pain feels like a cramp, and it stops when the activity stops and you rest..
Leg pain of this sort can a sign of a condition called peripheral arterial disease, or PAD. When you have PAD, major vessels that supply blood to the limbs and other important areas of the body have become partially or completely blocked.
When blood vessels in your legs are blocked, there's a good chance you also have fatty deposits in the arteries of your heart. That is: heart disease.
Other causes of leg pain that can require medical attention include the following.
Deep vein thrombosis is the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein. This condition is often abbreviated as DVT.
Phlebitis is pain and swelling in a vein, often cause by poor diet or a bacterial infection following an iv injection.
Thrombophlebitis is an inflammation of a vein with clot formation.
Varicose veins are actually twisted, widened and swollen veins caused by weakening of the vein's wall or valves.
Joint pain in the legs is usually not life threatening, but it can definitely impact your quality of life. Arthritis is the most common and familiar of these.
There are more than 100 types of arthritis. The most likely type to affect the legs is osteoarthritis, which happens when cartilage inside joints weras down with age and use.
Arthritis doesn't affect all joints at the same time. So you might start feeling some left leg pain from arthritis while the right leg feels fine. This will take a doctor's diagnosis, and possibly some x-rays, to know for sure.
After arthritis, one of the most common causes of left leg pain is sciatica. Like arthritis, this can also affect the right leg. Sciatica describes a condition caused by injury or stress to the sciatic nerve, which originates in the lower back and stretches downward into the legs. The sciatic nerve, can become worn or compressed if you have a job that requires you to sit for many hours without a break.
Similarly, your leg pain might be caused by a pinched nerve.
Spinal problems caused by certain medical conditions or an injury can cause pain that travels down nerve pathways and cause leg pain. Slipped or ruptured discs in the spinal column, or a condition called scoliosis (curvature of the back), might be responsible for discomfort in the legs.
As you can tell, there are plenty of possibilities when it comes to diagnosing left leg pain. The best idea is the simplest; describe your symptoms as clearly as you can to your doctor. He or she will be the best judge.
