Artery symptoms Assessment Questionnaire

Why: Arterial dysfunction can result in pain, which can be quite severe. Severe arterial occlusion as a result of vascular disease can be felt as constant excruciating pain.

Why: Raynaud's syndrome results in a predictable and unpleasant progression of symptoms of your peripheries in response to cold or to emotion. First your fingers/toes may become very pale, then bluish, then finally red and painful.

Why: This can be a symptom of arterial or vascular disease, as there is diminished and abnormal blood flow to your peripheral tissues (hands, feet).

Why: These can be symptoms of arterial disease, and can also cause or predispose you to a wide variety of arterial symptoms.

Why: Whilst potentially being symptoms of arterial disease, these can also raise your health professional's suspicion of your symptoms being related some form of arterial dysfunction.

Why: Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance are more and less severe forms of the same condition, and are relatively common. They can affect many different body systems, including your arteries. If you do have this condition then it can dramatically increase your risk of experiencing symptoms as a result of arterial disease.

Why: Peripheral vascular disease can result in arterial symptoms such as these, as leg or claudication pain occurs with exercise such as walking. It is important for you to also describe the distribution of your symptoms as they can reflect the seriousness of your peripheral vascular disease, or the artery/location in which it is predominantly occurring. You may feel these symptoms in either or both of your calves, hips/buttocks, thighs, or even rarely in your arms.

Why: Whilst this may not sound like an arterial symptom, it can actually indicate that you are experiencing peripheral vascular disease. The distance that you can walk before your arterial symptoms prevent your from walking further can act as a guide to the level of functional disability you are experiencing and the severity of the disease you currently have. For the particular severity of disease that you are experiencing, you may have a very constant, unchanging and specific level of exercise tolerance.

Why: The smoking of cigarettes can result in disease or dysfunction of many body systems, sometimes many years later. One such effect is arterial disease, and cigarette smoking may cause your health professional to suspect your symptoms to be arterial in nature. An example of one arterial disease potentially caused by smoking cigarettes is atherosclerosis which is thought to be one of the main disease processes resulting in a wide variety of vascular disease. Another example is thromboangiitis obliterans (Buerger's disease) which causes peripheral arteries to slowly narrow and occlude resulting in debilitating arterial symptoms which may require amputation to be considered.

Why: Rest pain is an arterial symptom which may indicate quite advanced peripheral vascular disease, and occurs when your legs are raised close to or above the level of your waist. Having your legs persistently high decreases the effect of gravity in assisting blood flow to your legs and feet. This results in pain and arterial symptoms as a result of lack of blood flow. This is why the pain may be relieved when the legs are lowered and so gravity can cause increased blood flow.

Why: A decrease in leg hair and unusually shiny or smooth skin may sound like completely unrelated symptoms to peripheral vascular disease, however they can occur as arterial symptoms with such conditions which cause decreased peripheral blood flow.

Why: Peripheral vascular disease can result in thickened or brittle nails as symptoms of arterial disease.

Why: Whilst skin ulcers can be the result of other causes, they may also be symptoms of arterial disease as the blood supply to an area of skin may be decreased. The distribution of any ulcers that you may currently have or have had in the past may be very important in assisting your health professional to accurately diagnose your condition. Arterial or vascular disease can result in ulcers in a different distribution than ulcers caused by other conditions.

Why: Hyperhomocysteinemia is a condition which results in an abnormally high level of a particular amino acid (homocysteine) to be present in your blood. Recent research has indicated that it may increase your risk of vascular disease and so its present or diagnosis may increase the likelihood that your symptoms are arterial or vascular in nature. It is also a condition which may be genetically inheritable and may tend to run in families.

Why: Hypertension is an important risk factor for many different forms of vascular disease which can result in you experiencing symptoms secondary to arterial dysfunction/disease. There is a tendency for hypertension to be more common in those who have relatives previously diagnosed with it, however its inheritance is not yet adequately understood.

Why: A high or abnormal level of cholesterol or lipid present in your blood can predispose you to developing vascular disease and arterial symptoms. There are several specific inheritable syndromes in which individuals within a family have abnormal levels or ratios of blood lipids. For most people however, their blood lipids are influenced mainly by their diet and exercise patterns.

Why: Being overweight or obese may increase your risk of having vascular disease and arterial symptoms as a result of that.

Why: This may seem like a long list of conditions which are quite unrelated, however in fact they reflect the range of conditions which are caused by vascular disease. They may all affect different bodily symptoms, but they are all potentially caused by the same vascular disease process which may simply occur in different bodily locations. Regardless of whether or not you have been diagnosed with any of them, the presence of any of these diagnoses in any of your family members can significantly increase your risk of developing vascular disease, any of its incarnations as listed above, or symptoms as a result of arterial dysfunction/disease.

Why: Lifestyle factors can be important in assessing the risk that your symptoms may be the result of arterial disease/dysfunction or vascular disease. The more stress that you experience, less regular exercise you perform and less healthy that your diet is, the higher your risk of developing vascular disease and potentially, arterial symptoms.

Why: Your health professional is not asking this question to be nosy or judgmental, but rather because research has identified that different ethnic backgrounds correspond with different levels of risk for developing vascular disease and arterial symptoms. For instance, African-Americans are more likely to develop vascular disease and arterial symptoms than either Caucasians, or those of Asian or Sub-Continental ethnic backgrounds.

Why: Symptoms as a result of arterial or vascular disease may slowly progress over some time, or they may appear to begin quite suddenly. In either case their presence may be taken seriously by your health professional as the underlying vascular disease slowly but constantly worsens over time. The initiation of treatment of a management strategy as early as possible can be extremely important in assisting you to maintain your quality of life for as long as possible and to prevent the slow worsening of the vascular disease or arterial symptoms.

Why: One particular arterial symptom which can result from vascular disease is a change in the colour of your skin in areas of impaired arterial blood supply. This occurs most frequently in the fingers and/or toes of those with extensive vascular disease.

Why: Some of your muscles such as those in your upper arms, upper legs/thigh, or calves, may decrease in size or atrophy as a result of vascular disease. This can be a subtle arterial symptom, but one which may indicate an advanced level of disease.

Why: This can be a secondary symptom of arterial disease, and may occur in sever disease where patients keep their legs low for longer periods of time than usual in order to prevent/avoid rest pain.

Why: Whilst there can be many different causes for erectile dysfunction, it can be a symptom of arterial disease or dysfunction, such as occurs in Leriche syndrome. In this syndrome there is extensive vascular disease which affects the arteries supplying the muscles in your buttock and penis, and so can result in a combination of buttock claudication pain and erectile dysfunction. It can also affect other areas of your body as well (such as your leg/s).

Why: These are all caused by dysfunction of your sensory nerves, which can occur in severe arterial or vascular disease. The distribution of your abnormal sensory symptoms can be important as they may reflect different levels of severity or distributions of arterial/vascular disease. An example of this can be in anterior spinal artery syndrome where you may experience a loss of sensation of pain or temperature over certain areas of skin due to vascular disease of the arteries supplying part of your spinal cord.

Why: Just as your sensory nerves can be affected by severe arterial or vascular disease so can the nerves which control your muscles. Decreased blood supply to these nerves causes them to function abnormally, and you may experience this is paralysis, weakness, altered sensation, numbness or any combination of these symptoms. It is also important for you to tell your health professional in as much detail as possible which muscles or movements have been affected, as different patterns of impaired motor function can reflect different distributions of vascular disease.

Why: This may be a symptom of arterial or vascular disease, and may begin whilst the condition is not very severe.

Why: Whilst these are not arterial conditions, their symptoms may appear similar to those of vascular disease and so your health professional may need to exclude the possibility that they may be the condition you have presented with.

Why: Chronic over consumption of alcohol (alcoholism) can result in symptoms which may mimic arterial symptoms, and so alcoholism needs to be ruled out before your symptoms can be diagnosed as being due to arterial or vascular disease.

Why: Neuropathy is another condition which can potentially cause similar symptoms to arterial or vascular disease, and so your health professional needs to ask about it in order to make an accurate diagnosis.

Why: These are small clots which can form in and "block" arteries, resulting in very acute onset of arterial symptoms. They can result in sharply circumscribed areas of severe pain unrelated to exercise, paleness of an area of skin, and even numbness or focal paralysis.

Why: There are some conditions which can predispose you to form blood clots which may affect one or more of your arteries, and so result in acute arterial symptoms.

Why: Along with an abnormally increased risk of forming blood clots, these can all be symptoms of antiphospholipid syndrome. This syndrome may result in the acute arterial symptoms due to abnormal blood clot formation within an artery.

Why: These are all conditions which may predispose you to the formation of an arterial embolus which can result in acute arterial symptoms.

Why: This question is designed to identify patients who use or are given non prescribed intravenous drugs (intravenous drug user). Whilst this practice aims to inject illicit drugs into veins, there may sometimes be injection into an artery which results in acute and potentially very dangerous arterial symptoms.

Why: Sometimes trauma or other injuries can result in damage to blood vessels such as arteries, and so may result in arterial symptoms. This can occur with lacerations, fractures, dislocations, to name a few.

Why: Skin nodules can have many different causes, however when they occur over arteries and where arterial symptoms are also present they may be as a result of thromboangiitis obliterans (Buerger's disease).

Why: Not feeling well in general (malaise) can be an arterial symptom caused by inflammatory conditions of arteries called vasculitis.

Why: Fevers can occur with vasculitis and as such they may be arterial symptoms.

Why: Generalised aches or pains can be experienced as arterial symptoms with vasculitis. More specifically however, abdominal pains may occur with polyarteritis nodosa (a vasculitis) and muscle aches may be the predominant symptom of polymyalgia rheumatica (a vasculitis mainly affecting the arteries in muscles).

Why: This is a broad range of conditions in which there is inflammation of your blood vessels, particularly arteries. It can result in symptoms which may be classed as arterial symptoms.

Why: Losing weight can be a symptom experienced with many different forms of vasculitis.

Why: Painful joints can be caused by many conditions, however if present with certain other symptoms it may be the result of vasculitis.

Why: Your eyesight can be affected in many different ways by arterial disease. In some forms of vasculitis you may temporarily lose vision in one eye (amaurosis fugax) as if a curtain has covered it, or you may temporarily lose one half of your field of vision despite being able to see out of both eyes (homonymous hemianopia). The latter is more likely to occur with other vascular disease such as transient ischemic attack or stroke/cerebrovascular attack.

Why: Temporal arteritis/giant cell arteritis is a form of vasculitis which can cause scalp tenderness along with other symptoms of arterial disease/inflammation.

Why: Arterial or vascular disease can interfere with the function of your kidneys. In some forms of kidney inflammation or dysfunction caused by arterial disease you may notice that the color of you urine changes and it may look like "coca cola" or appear to have blood in it.

Why: This can be a sign of proteinuria which indicated kidney dysfunction. Whilst there are many potential causes for this, one that needs to be considered is arterial or vascular disease.

Why: Renal failure can be caused by vascular disease such as vasculitis, and so whether or not you have had it in the past may be important for your current diagnosis and management. Renal artery stenosis is a condition directly caused by vascular disease where the arteries supplying your kidneys are diseased, and do not supply as much blood to the kidney as they otherwise should.

Why: Vasculitis can affect a very broad range of arteries and blood vessels in your body, including those in your lungs and nose. If experienced with other arterial symptoms, then these may be the result of vasculitis.

Why: Renal failure can be an important consequence of vasculitis or vascular disease, and anuria or polyuria can be signs of this. One vasculitis in which it occurs very frequently is polyarteritis nodosa, where it may occur in up to three quarters of patients.

Why: Vascular disease can result in such things as angina or myocardial infarction. However acute vasculitis can also cause these and similar symptoms chest pain symptoms in up to 80% of sufferers. One condition felt as sharp or "different" chest pain that is relieved by leaning forward or lying flat is pericarditis, which may occur in such vasculitides as polyarteritis nodosa.