Is there a difference between peripheral arterial disease and peripheral venous disease?

Yes: Vascular disease can affect the arteries (blood to the extremities) and veins (blood from the extremities), but both involve compromise in normal flow. Effort related pain, skin thinning, hair loss, and possible gangrene reflect arterial disease. Worse edema at night, varicosities, night calf cramps are usually venous. Causes are important to sort out since they dictate treatment options.

Yes: They are completely different. Venous disease is somewhat genetic, but if people lived long enough almost everyone would probably get venous disease at some point in their life. In fact 15% of the adult population has venous disease. Arterial disease, in contrast, is not as common in the general population. It occurs in smokers, diabetics, and in people with high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Artery vs vein: think of one (Periph artery disease) as problems with the vessels in charge of delivering blood, oxygen. and nutrients to the tissues and the other (peripheral venous disease) as problems with the vessels in charge of returning that blood to the heart.

Differences: Peripheral arterial disease refers to the arterial blood which is the oxygenated blood from your heart which gets pumped throughout your body. Disease in these blood vessels inhibit the amount of oxygen getting to your tissues. Peripheral venous disease refers blood vessels returning deoxygenated blood to the heart and lungs. The veins that typically are the ones that bulge out (varicose veins).