SHAWNEE, Kan. — Last year, walking for just five minutes caused pain in one of Bernie Weimholt’s calves. The Shawnee man had peripheral artery disease or PAD.
Bernie thought maybe he needed his leg artery unclogged and a stent implanted. Instead, his doctor at Saint Luke’s Hospital made a recommendation that baffled Bernie. He told him to walk.
“I asked him several times, are you sure? And he said yes,” said Bernie.
Dr. Dmitri Baklanov says patients’ first reaction to his recommendation is almost always shock. But he says walking can ease leg pain. It likely works by creating and expanding so-called collateral vessels which are branches off the artery. That improves blood flow to muscles and prevents pain.
Bernie was told to walk 20 minutes a day at first, and to keep walking even when the pain started.
“That was very hard,” said Bernie.
But in a month, he noticed improvement. In three months, the pain was gone, and it still is as he keeps walking.
“Walking therapy right now represents the most widely available, the safest and perhaps the most effective initial therapy for symptomatic PAD,” says Dr. Baklanov.
It’s certainly the cheapest therapy, too. Although the doctor says some patients still need medication or stenting. Bernie says his brother has had stenting in a leg artery.
“No question I would rather walk,” said Bernie.
He’s walking away from leg pain.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found people with PAD in a walking group were able to walk farther than those who weren’t in one.
Doctors say people who just try walking on their own may be more inclined to give up. Bernie says his wife kept him going
