Hello, I'm Kate Freeman, and this is The Daily Dollip. Transform your eating habits and achieve long-term wellbeing with ALA Health. ALA Health is a mobile app that combines micro-learning with meal planning into a seamless user experience that teaches you how to eat well for the rest of your life, one habit at a time. Download it now from the App Store, it's free!
On this episode of The Daily Dollip, I'm chatting with nutritionist Tara Leon from the Nutrition Bureau and the Chef about Lipa Deema. Not only will Tara share what the evidence says about nutrition's role in the management of Lipa Deema, she'll also share her lived experience with the conditions as well. Only good science translated into easy everyday advice. Let's do this.
What up developers? Welcome back to the show. The wonderful Tara Leon, a university qualified nutritionist and the face of the nutrition guru and the chef is with me again. Hi Tara.
Hello! We are stoked to have you for the whole week to chat about Lipa Deema. So let's get stuck into today's episode. So a few years ago now, I think it is years.
I feel like post-COVID, everything is blurry, to be honest. I feel like it was a few years ago, you shared your personal experience with Lipa Deema and receiving a diagnosis. I have seen you also semi-regularly share different management strategies you're doing or just share where you're up to and how you're feeling and if you've had a crappy day. I love that realness that you put on social media.
I remember it very clearly. So yeah, can you tell us more about your story with this condition and how it came about and how you're managing it now? Yeah. I would have to say it kind of sucks because it does affect you in many different ways, physically but also mentally.
It's a bit of a struggle. And I guess that's what led me to go and seek a diagnosis was we spoke a couple of episodes before about, it really was that my legs were actually growing in size disproportionately to the rest of my body. That were very sore, very painful. So I have a four kilo sausage dog and if she jumps up and she sits on my legs, it's excruciating.
And that's really sad. I want to cuddle my sausage dog. They're really painful. I think what also led me to go and investigate was at that time, my daughter Lucy Bell was that sort of three years old and you sit on a chair and all they want to do is climb up on you.
And I would always be like, ah, you know, like that, ouch, ouch, ouch. And I realized, hey, you know, it's not really normal for your legs to be feeling like that all the time. And basically they just always felt like they were sausages stuffed in sausage casing about to burst. Like they just, my legs often feel like they're going to the skin is too tight for what's inside.
And so I went to where I was living at the time. I shopped around just trying to tell a few different GPs what's happening here. And I did get dismissed as just you're putting on weight. You need to eat less.
You need to move more. And what's dangerous about that is that at that time the doctors didn't know how much I was eating. So I could have been eating very little. And even evidence of people with anorexia actually having lipodigma at the same time.
So and where you picture a normal, um, the thinness of anorexia, but then the hugeness of the legs. So it was very, very frustrating because I even kept thinking and I knew a lot about nutrition at that time. I was working as a lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast. I knew a lot about food and what to eat.
And I kept down and oh, maybe I don't know. Maybe I should just be eating less. And oh gosh, I'll try and move more. And nothing was happening.
I ended up seeing an occupational therapist who specialized in lipodigma from the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. And she was able to tell me exactly what was going on. And she was really integral in helping me to be able to move forward and understanding how to manage it. A diagnosis for this condition really needs to come from a specialist in the area.
Um, and there are, so there are several ways of managing it that I have learned over time. And one of those is walking in water or any exercise in water. I find that really helpful. So the action of the water moving against the legs or the arms is actually really great in moving the fluid back up to the heart and moving that around.
It just feels really great. Um, the other thing is rebounding or using your kid's trampoline of an afternoon. Um, I hop on my daughter Lucy Bell's trampoline and have about for a few minutes. And again, that just helps to move the fluid if someone does have fluid with their lip lip lip lipodema.
Yeah. And not everybody does have fluid problems when they do have lipodema. Um, some people have a combined condition called lipodema and lipodema, which is a problem with the fluid. Um, the other very important thing is actually getting onto compression garments.
And that is stockings or garments you put on your arms that have compression in them. And what that does is it helps to return fluid back to the heart. But it also works at, um, softening the fibrotic tissue that develops in the legs. And when that fibrosis develops, that's what makes it quite difficult, um, for, um, the fat to dissolve or move or, um, and, and the fluid to move through.
So compression is actually very important. And they do say that it does help to stop, um, or limit in some way the progression of the disease in getting, getting worse. So I wear these wonderful sexy black tights that are really thick. Like it actually takes you like seven minutes to just get them on.
It's really tricky. Yeah, but they feel really great. The other thing is, um, massage, so lymphatic drainage, manual lymphatic drainage massage. Um, my advice there would be to really seek out a therapist that is, um, uh, experiencing working with lipodema and lymphodema.
Um, because lots of massage therapists will say, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do an emphatic massage. Um, but they really need to have particular training in, in the area to, to be able to have the positive effect. Of, of that massage. Um, and then the other thing is that I do, it's very, oh gosh, I do all these very strange things, don't I?
Um, is I have a vibration plate and that's where I stand on a machine that vibrates and bounces me up and down. And again, that just helps in softening the tissues, breaking down the fibrosis and returning the fluid back up to the heart. And then I have a, what's called a rheumatic, um, pump and it's similar, it does a similar thing. I put my legs in the machine and it pumps up and let's go, pumps up and let's go.
And it helps to break down those fibers, return the fluid back to the heart. There is an option of surgery and, um, yeah, unfortunately, there's only, um, two surgeons to my knowledge in Australia who, who do surgery well on lipodema. It's, you can't just go and have liposuction. Um, it's a particular surgery that you need to have.
Um, the costs are around about $40,000, um, and that's at a minimum. So if I was to go and have my two legs done and they were made to look a bit slimmer and I would probably look a bit nicer in my bikini. Um, I would need to spend $40,000. Um, and there's no guarantee that, um, that lipodema fat won't then return after the surgery.
Yeah. So many people are opting for the surgical option. Um, and it is lucky that it's out there, but for me, that's, it's just unattainable at the moment. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. That's, that's such great, um, information on that. And I guess it just really shows how, you know, you ref, like you're focusing your efforts on the things that genuinely provide you with day-to-day relief.
Rather than what you were feeling before where you were like, am I eating right? Like, am I doing this right? Like, is this my fault where you're just full of frustration and feeling like, how, you know, how is this working? So thanks for sharing that.
And I think that's important in that, um, unfortunately, we'd know cure for this other than sort of $40,000 surgery that doesn't guarantee anything. You can feel out of control. There's not much you can do. You know, there really isn't much you can do.
I do all of these things. That's quite a lot of things that I do, but they don't, they don't, I've still got really sore legs and are really swollen. Um, but unfortunately in the community is that many of us are looking for a solution, looking for a way that we can take control and go, okay, I can manage this. I can do this.
And unfortunately, that's where the dietary kind of things come into place with promises of, you know, if you just eat this way, then you'll feel better and you'll look better. Yeah, I guess, you know, for me personally, with not having any like current health complications is that I can empathize with somebody who is really, who might have a health condition, right, that wellness is promising can fix. Yeah. And I can empathize with the desperation that they might feel, but I'd never really, truly know what that's like to have a condition that's so uncomfortable that never goes away that you're having to, you know, suffer through every single day in a body.
Um, I think that gives you a really excellent perspective on, on how all these wellness messages can, can really grab people in. Do you feel that? Do you feel that perspective? Yeah.
I do it unlike the master of critiquing nonsense online. Like, I think in episode one, if I was an expert in anything, I would say actually, you know what, I'm an expert in critiquing nonsense online. And I still go, Oh, should I try a card of all diet because that lady tried it and it made her feel better. Yeah.
You know, so, so it's always with, within us. Um, and, and, and, you know, I'm at a, life edema can become very advanced. So there's a stage four level and, you know, you can look at photos online and the level of mobility for a person to get around their house are greatly, greatly reduced or to get up off their couch, you know. And so that is, that is really hard for people to manage and live with.
And so anything that people can try and do to help themselves is worth, is worth a try for many of us. Yeah. Yeah. As long as we, um, we have to stay critical and think about what all the consequences are, but we can talk about that too.
Yeah. Amazing. Well, we'll finish up this episode on that. And next episode, Tara and I are going to dive into some research rabbit holes that Tara has done on different diets and its effect on this condition.
So stay with us. I hope you're enjoying the series so far. I absolutely am. We will catch you in the next episode.
The Daily Dollar Podcast is proudly brought to you by Ayla Health. Build food confidence and learn how to choose foods that are right for you and your body. Download the app today and build habits that last. As always, you can find out more about our chat in the show notes.
You can also join the conversation over in the Ayla Health community group on Facebook. We'd love to see you there. If you've got a topic you'd love to hear us chat about on the Daily Dollar, please let us know. Email us at hello at aylahealth.com.au or you can send us a message on Instagram.
Until next time.