Why Do You Have Calf Pain While Walking?
Have you ever felt your calves start hurting while you walk? This is usually caused by muscle tightness or it can be something more serious.
Calf pain is associated with various conditions such as:
Muscle strain
Diabetic neuropathy
Achilles tendonitis
Peripheral artery disease
Muscle Strain
If you feel soreness in your calf while walking, you may have strained your calf muscle. This is typically caused if you are doing movements that your calf is not used to. For example, if you just started running and have been pushing off on your calf muscle, you will have a strain. If your shoes are too tight, this can cause pain as well.
How do you treat muscle strain?
You can do stretches at home that focus on the calf muscle. If the pain is serious, rest with your leg elevated and apply an ice pack on your calf. After doing this for a while, you can then gradually work on your mobility.
Diabetic Neuropathy
If you are diabetic, this may be the cause of your calf pain. You may also feel numbness or a tingling sensation in your feet and calves that may feel worse as you walk. The high blood sugar levels that lead to neuropathy damages blood vessels and prevents them from supplying enough oxygen to nerve vessels
How is Diabetic Neuropathy treated?
If you have diabetes, you should schedule an annual foot care assessment with a chiropodist and regular visits with your foot specialist. With consistent and proper care, foot ulcers can be avoided. Also, you’ll be prescribed proper footwear that is customized to your needs.
If you have Achilles tendonitis, you’ll feel pain in your Achilles tendon, found on the back and lower part of your leg right above the heel. This is usually caused by overexertion, being on your feet for a long time, and wearing the wrong footwear. People with flat feet and athletes are at a higher risk of developing this condition.
How is Achilles tendonitis treated?
You can do at-home stretches, like the Soleus stretch. Looking into better insoles or custom orthotics can help as well. If you’re looking to recover long-term, do lighter forms of exercise that don’t involve high impact on your feet, such as cycling. Then, you can slowly ease back into higher intensity activities.
Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)
If you have PAD, this is when “fat and cholesterol-filled plaque narrows arteries, and blood clots collect on the plaque, narrowing them further”. The pain is typically felt in your calves and becomes worse while walking, and is triggered by the lack of oxygen in the muscle cells. PAD is evident in some diabetic patients. When treating this disease, the two goals are treating the calf and leg pain, and reducing your risk of a stroke or a heart attack.
Other causes of calf pain are:
At River Podiatry, our team is ready to serve and consult in order to help you safely run at all times. Set up an appointment today to speak with our team of trusted foot health professionals
