Leg Pain Doctor close to Van Nuys, CA

CACVI serves Van Nuys patients from our San Fernando Valley vascular office in Tarzana, at 18226 Ventura Blvd, Ste 102. From central Van Nuys it is a short drive southwest across the Valley to Ventura Boulevard, roughly six to seven miles. We do not keep a separate street office inside Van Nuys, and we would rather tell you that plainly than post an address we do not occupy. Our Tarzana office is where we perform ABI testing and arterial Doppler ultrasound on site and where our interventional team treats blocked leg arteries. Call 818-905-5904 and our staff will give you directions, verify your coverage, and let you know what to bring for your first vascular visit.

PAD is a narrowing of the arteries that carry oxygen-rich blood to the legs and feet, usually from cholesterol plaque — the same disease that clogs heart arteries. As flow drops, the leg muscles are starved during activity, causing the cramping and pain many Van Nuys workers notice when walking or standing. The 2024 ACC/AHA PAD Guideline describes it as common, underdiagnosed, and strongly linked to diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, and age. Left untreated, PAD can progress from exercise-only cramping to pain at rest and, at its worst, non-healing wounds and amputation. The encouraging part is that it is very treatable when found early, which is why a simple, painless in-office test is worthwhile if your legs hurt.

Long hours standing or walking on hard warehouse, retail, restaurant, and service floors are hard on the legs, but they cause two very different kinds of problem, and telling them apart is the whole point of an evaluation. Standing all day mainly stresses the veins, producing the aching, heaviness, swelling, and varicose veins of chronic venous insufficiency that ease when you put your legs up. Cramping that comes on predictably when you walk and eases with rest points instead to the arteries and PAD. Many Van Nuys workers assume sore legs are just part of the job, but pain that is worsening, one-sided, or paired with a slow-healing sore deserves a look. Our testing sorts arterial from venous so we treat the real cause.

The American Diabetes Association recommends a comprehensive foot examination at least once a year for everyone with diabetes, and more often if you already have neuropathy, poor circulation, a foot deformity, or a prior ulcer. Between visits, the ADA advises checking your own feet daily. This matters especially for Van Nuys workers who are on their feet all shift: diabetes damages both nerves and arteries, so you may not feel a blister forming inside a work boot while poor circulation quietly keeps it from healing. We pair the vascular side of that exam — pulses, ABI, and ultrasound when indicated — with practical guidance on footwear and daily checks, so a small sore never becomes a limb-threatening wound.

In most cases, yes. Our interventional team specializes in endovascular treatment: reopening a blocked leg artery through a needle puncture rather than a surgical incision. Depending on the blockage, that may mean balloon angioplasty (inflating the narrowed segment), a stent (a small scaffold that holds the artery open), or atherectomy (shaving or removing plaque). These procedures are typically done with light sedation, involve a small puncture site instead of a large wound, and usually allow a much faster recovery than open bypass surgery — which matters when you cannot afford weeks off your feet. Open surgery still has a role in select cases, but for many Van Nuys patients minimally invasive treatment restores circulation and relieves symptoms while keeping them out of the operating room.

The ABI is the cornerstone screening test for PAD, and it is completely painless. We measure the blood pressure at your ankles and compare it with the pressure in your arms using a cuff and a Doppler probe; a lower pressure in the leg signals a narrowed artery. The 2024 ACC/AHA PAD Guideline endorses the ABI as the first-line test for diagnosing PAD in people with symptoms or risk factors. It takes only a few minutes in our Tarzana office, requires no needles or dye, and gives us an immediate objective number. If the ABI is abnormal, arterial Doppler ultrasound then shows exactly where the narrowing is, so treatment can be aimed precisely at the blockage rather than guessed at.

A leg that becomes suddenly cold, pale, numb, or severely painful can signal acute limb ischemia — an abrupt loss of blood flow that is a surgical emergency. Society for Vascular Surgery guidance describes it through the "six P's": pain, pallor, pulselessness, paresthesia (numbness), paralysis, and poikilothermia (coldness). Flow must be restored within hours to save the limb, so call 911; do not wait for an office visit. Likewise, sudden one-sided leg swelling with warmth and pain may be a deep vein thrombosis, a clot that can travel to the lungs, and a rapidly spreading hot, red foot infection is urgent. From Van Nuys these go to Valley Presbyterian Hospital or the nearest ER. Chronic, gradual leg pain is what we evaluate in the office.

Often, yes — and it can be the difference between keeping and losing a foot. When a wound will not close, the limiting factor is frequently inadequate blood flow: the tissue simply is not getting the oxygen and nutrients healing requires. This advanced stage is called chronic limb-threatening ischemia. By reopening the blocked artery with a minimally invasive procedure, we restore flow so the body's own healing, along with good wound care, can finally take over. Vascular guidelines emphasize revascularization as central to limb salvage in these patients. For diabetic Van Nuys residents especially, evaluating a stubborn wound's circulation early — rather than treating only the surface — is what most often prevents an amputation.

Intermittent claudication is the classic symptom of PAD: a cramping, aching, or fatigue in the calf, thigh, or buttock that comes on after walking or standing a predictable distance and eases within a few minutes of rest. It comes and goes because the narrowed artery can supply enough blood for the muscle at rest but not enough for the extra demand of activity — so pain appears with exertion and fades when demand drops. Many Van Nuys workers learn to push through it or shorten their walking, which masks how far the disease has come. Because the pattern is so specific, describing it accurately helps us a great deal, and the ABI then confirms it objectively. Supervised walking is actually part of the treatment.

Yes — smoking is one of the strongest risk factors for PAD, and its effect on the leg arteries is even more pronounced than on the heart arteries. Tobacco damages the artery lining, accelerates plaque buildup, and promotes clotting, and it markedly raises the risk that PAD will progress to critical limb ischemia and amputation. The 2024 ACC/AHA PAD Guideline lists smoking cessation as a foundational treatment, not an optional add-on; stopping can slow disease progression, improve walking distance, and lower the risk of both amputation and heart attack. We treat quitting as part of the medical plan and can connect Van Nuys patients with cessation resources, because no procedure works as well against a still-active source of ongoing damage.

Yes. Not all leg pain and swelling is arterial; the venous system — the veins returning blood to the heart — causes its own set of problems, and it is especially common in people who stand all day. Chronic venous insufficiency, where the one-way valves in the leg veins weaken, leads to bulging varicose veins, aching and heaviness that worsen as the shift goes on, ankle swelling, and over time skin discoloration or venous ulcers near the ankle. Because a Registered Physician in Vascular Interpretation reads our ultrasounds, we can distinguish arterial from venous disease accurately, which is essential since the treatments are very different. We evaluate and manage venous disease and leg swelling alongside our arterial PAD work, so Van Nuys patients get one diagnosis covering the whole picture.

Because PAD is largely silent until it is advanced, and by the time a wound appears, circulation may already be badly compromised. The 2024 ACC/AHA PAD Guideline stresses that the disease is both underdiagnosed and undertreated, and that early detection is the key to preventing limb loss. Diabetes, which is common across working Van Nuys, makes this worse: nerve damage can blunt the warning pain while artery disease progresses unnoticed. National data consistently show that people who get timely vascular evaluation before a wound worsens are far less likely to lose a limb. That is why we push painless ABI screening for at-risk patients — catching reduced flow while it can still be reopened with a minimally invasive procedure is exactly how limbs are saved.

Your first visit is straightforward and usually gives you real answers the same day. We review your history — symptoms, your work, diabetes, smoking, and family history — then examine your legs, feet, skin, and pulses. If circulation is in question, we perform the ankle-brachial index and, when needed, arterial or venous Doppler ultrasound right there in the Tarzana office; both are painless and need no dye or needles. We then explain in plain language whether the problem is arterial, venous, or both, and what stage it has reached, and we outline a plan that may range from risk-factor control and a walking program to a minimally invasive procedure. Bring your medication list, insurance card, and any prior imaging.

CACVI accepts many major PPO and Medicare plans; call our office to verify your specific coverage before your visit. In a working community like Van Nuys, cost and coverage matter, and no one should put off getting a painful leg or a non-healing wound looked at because they are unsure what their plan covers. Our staff checks your benefits up front, explains what is covered, and tells you what to expect before you come in rather than after. If a referral or prior authorization is needed for vascular testing or a procedure, we help coordinate it. Call 818-905-5904 and we will walk through your coverage with you so you can focus on your legs, not paperwork.