Is Leg Pain When Walking Normal—or PAD?

If you get aching or cramping in your legs when you walk, you might wonder: Is this just normal muscle soreness, or could it be peripheral arterial disease? It’s a great question, and one that many people in the Sarasota and Venice area ask when they visit our clinic. After all, legs can hurt for all sorts of reasons – not every twinge means something serious. Let's talk about how to tell the difference between every day leg pain and leg pain caused by Peripheral Arterial Disease PAD.

Common Causes of Leg Pain During Activity

Not all leg pain is bad news. Sometimes, your legs hurt simply because:

You overworked your muscles: Maybe you increased your exercise intensity or walked farther than usual. This can lead to muscle fatigue or mild strains. The pain from a simple muscle overuse usually feels like general soreness or a pulled muscle. It tends to improve with rest and gets better over a few days.
Arthritis or joint issues: Many people have knee or hip arthritis which can cause pain when walking. Arthritis pain often feels located in the joint (for example, right in the knee or hip), and it may come with stiffness or swelling. Unlike PAD, which involves muscle cramps, arthritis pain is related to the joints and can persist even after you stop moving.
Nerve pain (sciatica or neuropathy): A pinched nerve in your back (sciatica) or nerve damage from diabetes (peripheral neuropathy) can also cause leg pain. Nerve pain is often described as burning, tingling, or shooting pain down the leg. It might flare up unpredictably, not just with walking – for instance, sciatica can hurt when sitting or standing up, not only during exercise.
Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD): Of course, PAD itself is a common cause of exercise-induced leg pain. PAD pain (called claudication) is due to poor blood flow to the muscles.

So, how do you know if your leg pain is from PAD or something more routine? The key is to look at the pattern and nature of the pain.

Is It PAD? How to Tell

Ask yourself a few questions about your leg pain. The characteristics below can give clues:

Does the pain consistently go away with rest? PAD pain stops after you rest for a few minutes. For example, if your calf cramps when you walk but eases up after you sit down for a short time, that pattern points to PAD. Pain from PAD typically comes back when you resume walking around the same distance as before. In contrast, pain from arthritis might linger even when you’re resting, and muscle strain might hurt for a while during rest once injured.
Where exactly is the pain? PAD-related pain is usually felt in the muscles of your leg – often the calf, but sometimes the thigh or buttock. It’s not usually in the joints. If your discomfort is centered in your knee joint or ankle, arthritis or a joint problem could be to blame instead. If it’s a radiating pain that shoots down your leg or is accompanied by tingling/numbness, a nerve issue might be the culprit.
Is it triggered by a specific amount of activity? PAD often causes a pretty predictable pattern: for instance, you might always get pain after walking two blocks or climbing one flight of stairs. With continued rest-exercise cycles, the distance you can walk without pain might even be consistently reproducible (like “I can do about 5 minutes on the treadmill before my legs cramp up”). Other causes of leg pain are less consistent. A muscle strain might hurt right away and limit your activity further, whereas early arthritis might only hurt after a longer day on your feet and can vary day to day.
Do you have other signs of PAD or risk factors? Consider if you have any of the other PAD symptoms we discussed (like foot wounds that heal slowly or cold feet) or risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, or high blood pressure. The more risk factors you have, the more suspicious we are that exercise-induced leg pain could be PAD. For example, a 65-year-old Port Charlotte resident who has smoked for years and experiences calf pain on walks has a higher likelihood of PAD than a 30-year-old with no risk factors experiencing similar pain.

These clues can help, but remember: you don’t have to self-diagnose. If you're unsure, get it checked by a doctor. We have simple, painless tests (like checking the blood pressure in your ankles) that can quickly determine if your leg pain is due to PAD or something else.

Most importantly, don’t ignore persistent leg pain. If it is PAD, you’ll want to address it early to improve your circulation and prevent it from getting worse. And if it’s not PAD, you still deserve to know what’s causing your discomfort so it can be treated properly. Sometimes we find patients actually have arthritis or a nerve issue; either way, we guide them to the right care.

In summary, leg pain when walking isn’t “normal” if it keeps coming back. It might not be PAD – but if it is, recognizing it is the first step to feeling better. When in doubt, let a healthcare professional sort it out.

Request Your PAD Evaluation