Leg Pain

Leg pain sometimes results from problems with your circulation, but the most common cause is musculoskeletal damage. If you have leg pain in your joints and muscles, visit Balcones Pain Consultants at their offices in Austin, Cedar Park, or Marble Falls, Texas. The highly skilled pain specialists use advanced treatments to reduce leg pain, including nerve blocks, biologic injections, and radiofrequency ablation. To learn how you can benefit from expert leg pain treatment, call Balcones Pain Consultants today or schedule an appointment online.

What is leg pain?

Leg pain can be dull and achy or sharp and shooting. It might feel like an electric shock going down the limb or focus on a specific area like the knee or ankle.

Leg pain might be due to a problem with the leg itself, or it can radiate (spread) from somewhere else, like your spine or buttocks.

Symptoms that often accompany leg pain include:

• Limited mobility
• Tingling
• Numbness
• Burning sensation
• Weakness
• Instability
• Reduced range of motion
• Inability to bear weight

You’re more likely to develop leg pain if you carry excess body weight. Advancing age, playing sports, car accidents, falls, and physically demanding jobs can also increase your risk of leg pain.

What causes leg pain?

Most leg pain results from overuse, wear-and-tear, or acute injuries to the bones, joints, and muscles. Common conditions include:

• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Ligament strains
• Tendon sprains
• Fractures and dislocations
• Tendonitis
• Shin splints
• Bursitis
• Muscle strains
• Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)
• Phantom limb pain
• Sciatica

Sciatica is a lower back disorder that develops when something like a herniated disc presses on the sciatic nerve. This large nerve splits in two as it exits your spine, with one branch going down each leg to the foot. Sciatica often causes worse pain in the leg than in the back.

Sometimes leg pain results from circulatory problems like peripheral artery disease (PAD), deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or chronic venous insufficiency (CVI, which causes varicose veins).

How is leg pain diagnosed?

To diagnose leg pain, your Balcones Pain Consultants provider reviews your medical history and asks for information about your symptoms.

They also conduct a physical exam and might order blood tests, nerve testing, and/or imaging procedures such as X-rays, or an MRI or CT scan.

How is leg pain treated?

After determining the cause of your leg pain, your Balcones Pain Consultants provider prepares a customized treatment plan for you. Depending on what’s causing the pain and how badly it affects you, your treatment program might include some of the following approaches:

• Rest and activity modification
• Using ice packs
• Wearing a compression bandage
• Using a brace, cast, or boot while an injury heals
• Physical therapy
• Hyaluronic acid injections
• Biologic injections like platelet-rich plasma (PRP)
• Steroid injections
• Genicular ablation
• Peripheral nerve stimulation

Balcones Pain Consultants uses conservative treatments where appropriate, as most patients do well with them and don’t require more invasive therapies. Advanced options can help those who fail to improve with other methods.

Find out what’s causing your leg pain and get expert treatment by calling Balcones Pain Consultants today, or go online to book an appointment.