A woman who spent her life savings on lipeodema reduction surgery has said it was “worth every penny” after years of suffering from the isolating condition.

When Sophie Leah, 33, from Manchester hit puberty, she suffered the dreaded teenage acne. After a routine trip to her doctor saw her leave with a contraceptive pill prescription, Sophie enjoyed life pimple-free and happy – until she started to notice drastic changes in her body shape – particularly her legs.

“I’ve had lipoedema since I was 15 – but I didn’t know it then. I had started on the contraceptive pill, because I had acne at the time,” she says.

“Quite quickly, I started putting a bit of weight on, but I realised that my body was changing in a quite unusual way, and my legs were getting obviously thicker. I thought, ‘Maybe it’s just puberty and my body’s changing,’ but it progressed from there.

“I’d gone from having pretty skinny legs to them becoming more of a column shape – my ankles weren’t defined anymore. Meanwhile, none of the weight was going on my waist. By the time I was in my twenties, the disproportion between my upper and lower body was really quite obvious.”

Lipoedema is a long-term condition that causes an abnormal accumulation of fat in the legs, buttocks, hips, and sometimes the arms, and is different from obesity and lymphoedema.

Sophie, who runs a blog titled Lipedema And Me, candidly admits that she was “so embarrassed” of her body that she would never have her legs on show – even on hot holidays abroad.

“I was getting quite bad symptoms of swelling as well, particularly in the heat. When I went on holiday, all my friends were always absolutely fine, but I had enormous cankles.

“For years, I was like, ‘What am I doing wrong? Why does my body look so different to everyone else?’ It was only about two years ago that I actually heard about lipoedema and I had a lightbulb moment, like, ‘Wow, this could be what I have. I have all these symptoms’. I was officially diagnosed in December 2022, and I’m 99.9 per cent sure that mine was brought on because of the pill.

Due to the timing of when Sophie started to suffer from the condition, she believes that hormonal contraception is what triggered it for her. However, there is no definitive research nor guidance from nationally recognised clinical bodies into the use of different methods of contraception and their effect on Lipoedema, according to Lipoedema UK.

Although, like Sophie, some patients have described their condition as worsening, or even beginning, at the same time that they began to use hormonal contraceptive methods.

Sophie began to exercise excessively but saw no change in her legs because, frustratingly, lipoedema isn’t made up of ordinary fat, making very difficult to reduce it with diet and exercise.

Sophie says: “I was doing workouts with weights, the kind that would give other people lovely definition in the legs, but mine still looked like tree trunks. My collar bones were sticking out, I was becoming skeletal on my top half, but my legs stayed exactly the same.

“Unfortunately, since getting my lipoedema diagnosis, I’ve recognised that I had disordered eating in the past as well. I wouldn’t go as far to say I was anorexic or anything like that, but when I was 19, at university, I fell into disordered eating patterns at the time because of my lipoedema and because nothing I was doing was making any difference.

“It’s a horrible condition. It’s very isolating and you feel like you’re the only one suffering from it. In summer, everyone has their legs out, and everyone’s wearing summer clothes, while I always wore wide-leg, baggy pants to cover everything.”

Sophie ultimately decided enough was enough and, after carefully choosing a surgeon, headed to Madrid for Water-Assisted Liposuction (WAL) in October 2023.

“If you had told me a year ago that I would be going abroad for surgery, I never would have believed you, because I always thought that people who went abroad to Turkey were crazy,” she laughs.

“I went with my mum because you need a carer with you to look after you because, especially for the first few days after surgery, it’s difficult to move about. Your legs are very swollen and sore.

“The area that I had treated was from my ankles to just above my knee, which is the part of my body where the majority of my lipoedema was, and where I experienced the most pain. The heaviness and swelling was so severe that it was actually stopping me from exercising the way I wanted to. It was just horrible.”

But this life-changing surgery doesn’t come cheap.

“The price for one area is €5,575,” Sophie reveals. “It’s quite sad, really, but I’ve used all my savings to pay for it, and I was planning on buying a house or doing something with my partner with that money. But health comes first.

“On top of the price of the surgery, I had to pay for flights, accommodation, pre-op tests, manual lymphatic drainage massages, which is something that you have to have done post and pre-op, and I spent around £9,000.”

Thankfully, Sophie is delighted with the results of her surgery, after doctors were able to remove a whopping 5.8 litres of fat from the lower part of her legs.

Sophie says: “It’s like walking around on air now – I feel like a different person! My pain and my heaviness is completely gone now because I had so much volume in my lower leg.

“Also, my style has completely changed. I was just on my first hot holiday since my surgery and I actually got to wear summer clothes and not hide my legs away, which felt amazing!”

“I do also have lipoedema in my thighs and my arms, but it’s only stage one and now that I’m aware of lipoedema, I can manage it more to stop it progressing. I feel like I’ve treated the main area that was bothering me, and I’m just going to play it by ear now.”

Sophie has taken what some would consider to be a gamble, as, after spending her life’s savings, she can’t be sure the lipoedema won’t return.

“Research is still being done but they say that regrowth in the same area, if you’ve been to a good surgeon and they’ve been very extreme with their removal, is very unlikely, but it is possible for there to be new growth in different areas.

“Quite a lot of women notice that when they’ve had one area treated, it grows more in different areas. But I’m quite strict with my management, so I wouldn’t say I’ve noticed tonnes of regrowth – touch wood.”

She adds: I do manage it quite strictly, with things like my diet and exercise, but you never know. I don’t have children, but if I did in the future, it could potentially get worse.

“The same goes for when I go through menopause. It’s very difficult to know how your body is going to react to these periods of hormonal change. But getting surgery is the best thing I’ve ever done – it’s been worth every penny.”

Read more about Sophie’s journey on her blog, Lipedema and Me, www.lipedemaandme.com.

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