In this Q&A, cardiologist Dr. Mohammed Osman with Advanced Cardiovascular Specialists (ACS) discusses how peripheral artery disease (PAD) is treated through lifestyle changes, medications and interventional procedures.

Nowadays, we have a lot of treatment options for peripheral artery disease. During the early phases, we try to focus on medical therapy. We work with our patients to achieve the best goals in treating some of the risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. We do have some supervised exercise programs, which help the patient basically deal with the pain. If all these methods are not enough, we do have advanced treatment options. We can actually go there, find the blockage, and fix that by either ballooning the area or putting a stent to relieve that blockage. I say always to my patients: If you have symptoms of leg cramping or wounds which are not healing, seek medical attention because we do have a lot of treatment options for those.