I had a follow-up with my PS yesterday. It was just a quick visit to make sure I was doing well. I am.
This has been an incredible journey. I realize I haven't posted much lately. It's hard to say why. I guess because some of the post-surgical stuff has been difficult. Not so much physically but emotionally. Although physically, it was also tough.
No surgery is necessarily easy. Lipo for lipedema is unlike regular lipo. Liposuction is typically about removing a little bit of fat (a liter or so) and sculpting the body. It's not so much about what you remove but about what you leave behind.
Liposuction for lipedema patients is almost butchery in comparison. The surgeon goes in with a goal of removing everything -- the surgeon tries to leave nothing behind. Any lipedema fat that remains has the ability to regrow and mutate again. If it's left, it will once again take over the body. So sculpting and creating beautiful legs just isn't the end goal.
In addition, the surgeon is taking a lot of fat out. In comparison, the leg of an average-sized person weighs about 26 pounds. A woman with lipedema might have about 12 liters of fat removed from both her legs (or 26 pounds of fat) and still have large legs left. In fact, I had 15 liters of fat removed from my legs (and still have big legs).
Before surgery, I rarely took photos of myself because I was so ashamed of my legs. So the night before my first surgery, I asked my husband to take a few "befores."
I wanted to cry when I saw them. They were so ugly. Hideous even. The lumps and bulges were awful, and my legs bent out at the knee because there was so much fat on my inner thighs.
Shockingly, there were. My legs were still quite large, quite lumpy, quite ugly, but they were already noticeably better. For one thing, my lower legs no longer bowed out quite so significantly at the knees because my PS focused his efforts on my inner thighs. The swelling declined dramatically, and my "knee cliffs" or giant pads of fat over my knees, had been reduced.
The next surgery was on the backs of my thighs, and I don't have too many pictures, but the progress after the third surgery was even more noticeable. The misalignment at my knees was now totally gone. My upper legs were still lumpy with lipomas, and I still have the large fat pads below the knees (and I do to this day because that area is far too fibrotic to suction). He removed the saddlebags and hip pads that were growing and did more work around my knees. All of these growths can cause significant dysfunction because they affect the way the joints work, and because of the way the fat is encased in lipomas, it can't just be lost like normal fat. It's really sucky. No pun intended.
This has been an incredible journey. I realize I haven't posted much lately. It's hard to say why. I guess because some of the post-surgical stuff has been difficult. Not so much physically but emotionally. Although physically, it was also tough.
No surgery is necessarily easy. Lipo for lipedema is unlike regular lipo. Liposuction is typically about removing a little bit of fat (a liter or so) and sculpting the body. It's not so much about what you remove but about what you leave behind.
Liposuction for lipedema patients is almost butchery in comparison. The surgeon goes in with a goal of removing everything -- the surgeon tries to leave nothing behind. Any lipedema fat that remains has the ability to regrow and mutate again. If it's left, it will once again take over the body. So sculpting and creating beautiful legs just isn't the end goal.
In addition, the surgeon is taking a lot of fat out. In comparison, the leg of an average-sized person weighs about 26 pounds. A woman with lipedema might have about 12 liters of fat removed from both her legs (or 26 pounds of fat) and still have large legs left. In fact, I had 15 liters of fat removed from my legs (and still have big legs).
Before surgery, I rarely took photos of myself because I was so ashamed of my legs. So the night before my first surgery, I asked my husband to take a few "befores."
 |
| before the first surgery |
But the "ugly" was only part of the problem. My legs weren't functional anymore. They were painful and sore and swollen. The right one was several inches larger than the left one, and I shuffled when I walked because they were so malformed. How any doctor looked at my legs and thought they were normal is beyond me.
Shortly after the first surgery, I asked my husband to take another picture so that I could see if there were any visible changes.
Shockingly, there were. My legs were still quite large, quite lumpy, quite ugly, but they were already noticeably better. For one thing, my lower legs no longer bowed out quite so significantly at the knees because my PS focused his efforts on my inner thighs. The swelling declined dramatically, and my "knee cliffs" or giant pads of fat over my knees, had been reduced.
The next surgery was on the backs of my thighs, and I don't have too many pictures, but the progress after the third surgery was even more noticeable. The misalignment at my knees was now totally gone. My upper legs were still lumpy with lipomas, and I still have the large fat pads below the knees (and I do to this day because that area is far too fibrotic to suction). He removed the saddlebags and hip pads that were growing and did more work around my knees. All of these growths can cause significant dysfunction because they affect the way the joints work, and because of the way the fat is encased in lipomas, it can't just be lost like normal fat. It's really sucky. No pun intended.
I had significant post-surgical swelling after the third surgery (at this point, 12 liters of fat had been removed from my legs), so we had to wait several months for him to do the last surgery, which finally took place in February 2017.
The final picture was taken in June 2017.
The swelling is almost all gone. I still have large knee pads and significant lipomas in my thighs. I have severe fibrosis in my calves. I have terrible loose skin in my thighs, too. My legs are ugly. UGLY.
But they work.
THEY WORK.
And really, that's what I care about.
My PS told me that the longest term study they have at this point shows that the fat does not come back 15 years after surgery. So I can be confident of at least 15 years of mobility, function and comfort. He said that I may have some symptoms return that we can address as they occur, but the fat should *not* return. We discussed diet/exercise/swelling management strategies, all of which I'm already doing.
I feel good about things.
I've even found ways to hide the worst of the ugly legs, lol.
Cute dress, anyone?
So yeah. Life goes on. This is an ugly, awful, life-altering disease, but I was one of the lucky ones. I had insurance that made treatment not just a possibility but a reality for me, and I will be forever grateful for that. It shouldn't be that way. All women should have access to proper diagnosis and compassionate lipedema care.
