Liposuction is not a
cure for lipedema. Been there, done that. Buuuuut….how long will you be able to
enjoy the benefits? Snaky question, which I don’t have an answer to. All I know
is, that it could be much shorter than anticipated.
I’ve blogged about
the fat sometimes returning fairly soon in individuals. This week an article
from The New York Times from May 8, 2011 was brought under my attention again. It’s disturbing: in a
year fat was regained. Be it elsewhere, but fat was regained. Oops. I also
stubbornly insist you CAN regain at the locations where the fat was sucked
away. You can. Many have.
Where does that sit
with the (few) long term studies on liposuction in case of lipedema? Quite
well, actually. It’s a story of give and take. A case of “yes, but”. The body
appears to be fond of storing. In lipedema we took this to the next level. And
some, if you look at patients in stage 3. With liposuction we “steal” fat from
our body and the little hoarder that she is will work overtime to “fix” that. Bring
on the inflammation. We’ll get you gaining at under 1000 cal. a day. Ha!
Yes, but. Thankfully
there’s a “but” in this. You can counteract inflammation. You can attempt to crack
the code to your body and figure out an eating and exercise plan that works
well for you. Balance the stress, tweak some here, tweak some there. More and
more of us manage to trick our bodies out of hoarding. At least between
hormonal highs and lows. When the hormones shuffle, we are, alas, riding
shotgun. Screaming “stop!”, praying the hormones will listen and hit the brakes.
The cases in my mind, where fat came back at a cruel pace involved women who were close to hormonal changes or didn’t change their lifestyle. And perhaps it also is of importance how much is removed. It has been implied – not researched – that, in order to tip the scales and change the balance properly for the patient, a significant amount of fat needs to be extracted. I wouldn’t be surprised, although clueless how to define “enough” and “too little”. (Can I make another request for research? Put it on the list, please.)
So, when considering
liposuction, it doesn’t hurt to ask yourself if it would still be worth it for you
personally if you could only enjoy the new optimum for, say, 5 years. It can
be. Like with me. My kids are small NOW. I wanted the extra energy to start a new career NOW. I have this new window of opportunity that I obviously want to last
and last. Every year in my present state counts. I make it count. It will be
disappointing when I get pushed over to the passenger seat and watch the
hormones take hold for a while again, but that’s the risk. I was willing to
take it.
I bring this up,
because for you it could also be worth it, but you need to know to take a
proper decision. Maybe you’ll decide to wait, until after you have a family. Or
not. Maybe you secretly hoped lifestyle would be less of an issue after
liposuction. Sorry, no. Essentially you’re buying time. Make it count.
In post-menopause, my guess is that the lipedema fat on my legs is acting as an 'estrogen factory', (I can't take HRT), & if I had liposuction the lipedema leg fat would return as lipedema belly fat partly due to the sudden drop in estrogen. The drop in estrogen would lead to testosterone becoming more dominant, which can lead to more belly fat. It may help to think of body fat in general as a giant endocrine organ, & that the body will hold onto lipedema fat in an attempt to stabilize its hormones. I'm just learning. But I've lived with this horrible curse of a disease for about 60 years. This year I discovered its name. It's a gross, gruesome, painful, nerve-wracking, depressing, frightening disease & my heart goes out to all sufferers.
ReplyDelete