If aggravating factors such as high body weight / obesity are unmanaged, symptoms will invariably worsen. Patients with lipedema are seldom “typical”, and the abnormal accumulation of fat is only the most visually obvious symptom. A “typical” sufferer of lipedema appears to have a disproportionately overweight lower body as compared to their upper body, which is also accompanied by pain.

Lipedema is a chronic and chronically misunderstood disorder with unique health implications. Rather, lipedema is its own distinct condition, and a non-trivial one. Individuals with lipedema are often misdiagnosed as simply being overweight, or their condition is mistaken to be a different swelling condition known as lymphedema.

In reality, sufferers of lipedema are actually a heterogenous group of individuals dealing with lipedema plus or minus the related conditions of obesity and lymphedema. This condition is frequently accompanied by obesity and psychological vulnerability / distress, and less frequently by fluid swelling commonly (and again, inaccurately) referred to as “lipo-lymphedema”. Lipedema (sometimes called “lipoedema”, or more accurately “lipalgia”) is a chronic condition that causes an abnormal accumulation of painful adipose tissue (fat) in specific areas of the body (typically the legs).