About a week ago, I was sitting around my apartment & I began to have a terrible pain in my lower back. After a couple of days of this, the pain in my back lessened but it seemed to move to my thigh & has gradually been going down my leg ever since. Right now, there is a lot of pain in my calf. The pain is always in the back of my leg and hurts primarily when I stand up and walk. I can only walk for about a minute before the pain becomes overwhelming and I need to sit down. While at rest, the pain is limited but has made me restless at night. Everything I have found online points to intermittent claudication, but that seems to happen primarily in older people & I'm only 22.
So my primary question is whether or not anyone has heard of cases of intermittent claudication in someone as young as I am? I'm a smoker and, in all honesty, do not take the best physical care of myself...so is that a real possibility? Other than that, do these symptoms sound like anything else? Any help would be extremely appreciated because the hospital was useless & I do not have a doctor's appointment for another ten days.
Re: Terrible leg pain when walking/standing...help
I heard about the men, heavy smokers, to have intermittent claudicantion about their fourties. I think that the pain there would start in the calf and would stay there because it seems very unlikely to me to have so extensive atherosclerosis that all of a sudden would cause pain in thighs.
Your pain from lower back downwards could be from bulging (herniated) disc and pinched spinal nerve. Maybe you've lifted or carried something heavy or worked hard (like in the garden) recently (maybe months ago). A single wrong movement would be enough - let's say lifting of a 50 kg heavy box. Or very prolonged sitting over a long time (in the office or in the car).
My school-mate was operated for bulging disc at his twenty and no obvious cause was find. It can be spinal stenosis or just predisposition for this disease.
Until visit the doctor just try to find the position which doesn't cause you pain.
Re: Terrible leg pain when walking/standing...help
Thought you might be interested in my story. Two years ago I noticed hip pain mostly when walking, then I started haveing pain in the tail bone area. I kept putting off going to the doctor thinking it was probably arthritis. It continually got worse until I went down in the yard one day because of the hip and leg pain . I decided something must be terribly wrong and knew it was time to see the doctor. I immediately was diganosed with claduation of the Aorta, so badly that there was no pulse in my feet. I had to have a double abdominal aorta bipass. However surgery wasn't scheduled for another six weeks so my surgeon gave me a supply of pain pills and I waited. During the waiting time the pain extended to my lower leg and into my feet. The pains would run down my leg and felt as if it exploded at my toes. I had to sleep on my stomach with my toes pointed down so they wouldn't hurt so bad. I am 60 years of age, excellent health otherwise in fact I had not even had so much as a cold in over 10 years, but I also was a smoker.
I would like to talk with others who have had this surgery to compare notes and your experience.
Re: Terrible leg pain when walking/standing...help 
