Lipedema treatments and awareness

Heather has been diagnosed with stage 3 Lipedema. There are few treatments available, no cure, and everything is expensive. I want to help her pay for medical care to increase the amount of time she is able to stay functional and decrease the amount of pain she is in all the time.

Lipedema is a disease involving abnormal fat deposition that can result in pain, immobility and lymphatic disturbances.

Lipedema (sometimes spelled Lipoedema) is a chronic disorder of adipose tissue generally affecting the legs, which causes the legs and sometimes the arms to accumulate fatty tissue. It is distinguishable by six characteristics:

it can be inherited;

it occurs almost exclusively in women;

it can occur in women of all sizes, from the seriously underweight to the morbidly obese;

it involves the excess deposit and expansion of fat cells in an unusual and particular pattern: bilateral, symmetrical and usually from the waist to a distinct line above the ankles;

unlike normal fat, lipedematous fat generally cannot be lost through diet and exercise:

a pathognomonic indicator of lipedema is that the feet are spared.

Lipedema usually is triggered at puberty, but can trigger or worsen during or after pregnancy, at perimenopause, and following gynecological surgery, i.e., surgery of the uterus, ovaries, or fallopian tubes, or any surgery with general anaesthesia. Lipedema acn also be triggered by an extremely stressful situation such as a death in the family or a divorce because cortisol levels increase, causing an inflammation cascade, almost always misdiagnosed as simple weight gain. If lipedema is diagnosed early, which currently is very rare, it is possible to prevent a significant expansion of lipedematous fat cells and to alert patients to their heightened risk factors so they can take appropriate action.

Esitmates of the incidence of lipedema vary widely, and range as high as 11% of the post pubertal female population, with estimates of 17 million women in the US, and 270 million women affected worldwide.

With obesity reaching epidemic proportions and anti fat bias prevalent in healthcare, it becomes critical that patients are correctly diagnosed and that resources are invested in understanding this disease and how it can be treated.

More info: http://lipedemaproject.org/