National Health Blog Post Month – Day 6: Say What?
What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve heard about your health condition? Was there any context? What did you think at the time you heard it – and what do you think of it now?
The most often heard and reason I advocate and share my story of living with lipedema is that the condition does not exist, that’s is merely an excuse for being fat, blaming genes. The most frustrating is when those comments come from medical professionals. Even those professionals that had heard of lipedema, knew of it to be very rare, so rare they doubted I actually had the condition. The assumption is I am a non-compliant patient. Even when keeping food and exercise journals, I would be accused of lying, as my food intake would not account for my lack of weight loss.
A few years ago a doctor on Twitter told me I most likely did not have lipedema and lymphedema, “probably not Sarah. those syndromes are very rare & present in early childhood, often accompanied by other birth defects.” I blogged my frustration. It would be such a relief if I really was just fat, that would mean I could actually control my weight through diet and exercise, but the conditions are real, very real.
As I meet more and more women who have lipedema, and hear their stories of struggle to have medical professionals recognize and diagnosis lipedema I no believe lipedema is a rare disease, I believe it’s merely under diagnosed.
