Anyone deal with PAD

I take gabapentin for my PAD and it is a great help! A lot of literature says you have to take it for 2 to 3 weeks before you can feel the effects, but I can take one 300 mg dosage in the morning and within a few hours, I can feel my feet again and my legs are not burning and uncomfortable. Depending upon how uncomfortable I am feeling, I might take another dose around 2 o’clock. By the time I’ve hit my second pill, within a few hours I am pain-free for the rest of the day and able to sleep easily. The doctor prescribed two 300 mg capsules three times a day. I felt like a zombie , and adjusted the dose myself to less than half that. To piggyback on another answer, I am 72 years old and have health issues that have recently cropped up and make it hard for me to walk every day. I’m usually able to do a mile and a half/30 minutes at least three times a week. I’m sure it’s helping something , but it did nothing for my neuropathy. I don’t know why because I thought it would have, but that is my situation. Good luck to your friend! It’s a very uncomfortable thing to be saddled with!

I also have PAD and have had an angiogram to remove the blockage in my thigh only to have it reoccur about a year later. I then had an another surgery to attempt to open the blockage but that was unsuccessful. Currently, I too am having a great deal of pain in my leg and am attempting to walk every day but with significant discomfort. I have been advised by my surgeon that she can attempt another procedure to open the blockage going through my groin and also through my ankle and meeting in the middle to attempt to break through the blockage. She also has suggested a possible bypass surgery. This disease is painful and can significantly disrupt your life style.

This is a really interesting thread.
What I'm wondering is if anyone has managed to find Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET) anywhere. NICE apparently recommends 2 sessions a week for people with PAD but I've not yet found anyone who knows anything about it, including doctors.
It seems to me that it would be such a good way both to find out what sort of exercise is best for each person's situation and to actually get encouragement to do it. Any info much appreciaed.

That's really kind of you - thank you.

I'll try again following this to the letter, though my problem has been that I seem to be able to walk 45 mins plus on the flat without needing to stop. I've therefore been trying an incline of 12 degrees which makes that length of time very 'unpleasant ' indeed when added to boredom (great description btw) but still not forcing me to stop through pain.

I don't suppose you know if heel lifts on each leg separately, which give the target level of pain within 2 minutes, give an equivalent amount of benefit if repeated, say, three times each leg?

@bmcq I am sorry I don’t know about the effect of using heel lifts, although I doubt trying them out would be harmful. Do you currently have a femoral blockage that is causing your pain? The therapy for this disease is rare in that you are supposed to exercise/walk to the point of pain causing you to stop and rest then start again.😕

I do have a narrowing of the right femoral artery and in both calves that causes intermittent claudication. My understanding is that exercise to the point of pain forces blood into tiny side channels which then develop into collateral arteries to take blood around the narrowed area - called arteriogenesis I believe.

Given it takes me a lot of walking to get anywhere near the pain caused by heel lifts, it would be good to save that time. However I also believe that walking has all sorts of beneficial effects beyond arteriogenesis - so I probably need to keep going with the walking too. No easy answers!

I do have a narrowing of the right femoral artery and in both calves that causes intermittent claudication. My understanding is that exercise to the point of pain forces blood into tiny side channels which then develop into collateral arteries to take blood around the narrowed area - called arteriogenesis I believe.

Given it takes me a lot of walking to get anywhere near the pain caused by heel lifts, it would be good to save that time. However I also believe that walking has all sorts of beneficial effects beyond arteriogenesis - so I probably need to keep going with the walking too. No easy answers!