APRIL’S NOTE

Hey friends! Here’s what is on the agenda this week:

A study on measuring lipedema in the arms
A comment on a YouTube video that got my attention and served as a reminder of why we have to keep spreading the word
An essay that serves as a reminder that these are the days to get out there and live.
There's a roundtable coming up on the 19th with a lipedema dietitian, and I found some swimsuits worth looking at while everything is on clearance.

THIS WEEK IN LIPEDEMA

Bonnie Newlin, MPA, MS, RD, CDN, CLT, will be visiting the Lipedema Roundtable on August 19th at 8 PM Eastern. Bonnie is a lipedema nutrition dietitian. The discussion will examine how genetics, nutrition, and metabolic health may influence the way lipedema develops and affects each person. Register here. You can watch the replay of July’s roundtable HERE.
A new study looked at arms
Lipedema doesn't only show up in legs. For many women, it shows up in the arms too.
Researchers wanted to know if a simple scan could help spot it. So they used ultrasound, the same kind of machine used to look at a baby before it's born. It bounces sound off your body and makes a picture.
They scanned 102 women. Half had lipedema. Half didn't. The two groups were matched by age and by BMI, so body size wasn't the thing making them different.
They measured six spots on each arm. At every single spot, the women with lipedema had thicker tissue under the skin. That stayed true even when the women were the same size.
The best spot to measure was the middle of the upper arm, about 4 inches below the armpit. If the tissue there measured thicker than 11.4 millimeters (a little under half an inch), that pointed toward lipedema.
Here’s what you should remember:
The scan detected most women with lipedema. That's the good news, but it also flagged about half of the women who didn't have it. So a thick measurement doesn't prove much on its own. It's one more piece of information, and a doctor still has to look at everything else.
There's another catch. To decide who "had lipedema" in the first place, the researchers relied on a doctor's judgment. And we already know that judgment varies a lot from doctor to doctor.
Barros FS, Tavares IR, Frasson PHL, De Nadai ACC. Ultrasound criteria for upper extremity lipedema diagnosis. Phlebology. 2026 Jul 29:2683555261475099. doi: 10.1177/02683555261475099. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 42527880
I found another reminder of why spreading awareness is still so important. I stumbled upon this video on YouTube from someone who was sharing about lipedema. Take a look at this comment on that video:
“Thank you for raising awareness of this condition. I have been a nurse practitioner for over 25 years and have not heard of this previously. I am a professor of nurse practitioners and I looked in the textbook I use and it is not in there anywhere. Shocking for a condition that affects 10% of females.”
This is someone in the medical field for more than 25 years and teaching others, but they’ve never heard of lipedema. It’s amazing that more and more people are learning about lipedema, but there is still so much to do.

These Are The Days

My mother-in-law is fighting stage 4 cancer. The reason you didn’t see Lippy Notes last week was because of an emergency that was caused by her treatment. I'm not going to write much about her here, because it's her story and she's still in the middle of it. But I have been watching someone I love do the math on how much time she has, and it has changed how I think about my own.

For years, I didn't get in the water with my kids. We went to pools. We went to lakes. I was there for all of it, in a cover-up, on a chair, holding the towels and the phones and somebody's goggles. I have been the woman at the edge of the water for entire summers of my children's lives. And every time, I told myself the same thing. Not this year. Next year, when things are different.

I want to be honest about what I meant by different. I meant smaller. I meant when my legs looked like something I could stand to have other people look at. That was the condition I put on it. That was what my kids were waiting on, without ever knowing they were waiting on anything.

Nobody at that pool was thinking about my legs. I knew that then and I know it better now. I was thinking about people who were not concerned about my appearance, a room that was not watching me, and I paid for it in something I can't go back and get.

The part that stays with me isn't what I missed. It's what they have. When my kids think about those afternoons, I'm in the chair. That's the picture they've got, because I chose it over and over in a hundred small moments. Each afternoon on its own felt like nothing. I'll go in next time. It turns out there were a lot of next times.

I’m aware that I have to be careful, because I know who's reading this.

I'm not going to tell you to get in the pool. You're not promised tomorrow, so go live your life, may not be particularly helpful. Underneath it, there is the assumption that the only thing standing between you and the water is your own attitude. For a lot of you, that isn't true. Some of you can't get in and back out safely. Some of you have wounds that can't go in water at all. Some of you have a body that gives you three good hours a day, and you spend them on the things that keep your household running. That's a real limit, and I'm not going to pretend it's something you could think your way out of if you just wanted it badly enough.

So the question I'd actually ask isn't whether you're doing the thing. It's what's stopping you. Is it your body, honestly, today? Or is it a room full of people who aren't looking at you?

For me, the reason was that I didn't want to be seen.

I hope you'll be gentle with yourself about it, and I hope you'll look for the version of the thing your body will let you have. Sitting on the steps in the shallow end counts. Going at seven at night when the pool has emptied, that counts. And being in the photo counts even if you're fully dressed, and it's only from the shoulders up.

If you’re concerned about who’s watching, I'd just ask you to think about who's actually paying for it. Because it isn't the people who may or may not be watching. They went home and forgot about you before they got to the parking lot. The ones who paid were the two kids who wanted their mom in the water.

Maria Shriver posted something last week that I keep thinking about. Her daughter sent her an old picture, and Maria wrote back that those were the days. Her daughter corrected her. These are the days right now, she said. The ones you're in.

I spent years treating my life as the warm-up. The real one was going to start later, in a different body, and I was just getting through until then. But my kids were already having their childhood. That was it. That was the actual thing, happening while I watched and smiled.

Mine are 22 and 16 now. There is no summer coming where I get to be in the water with a small version of them again.

I could spend my time focused on regrets and what I missed out on, or I could focus on the future. I choose to look ahead while learning from the past. There are still lots of memories to make. What about you?

These are the days. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Let’s make the best of it.

FINDS AND FAVES

When was the last time you actually purchased a swimsuit? Girl, now is the time. Many brands are putting them on sale and clearance right now. There are so many options these days. You can even go swimming with your legs covered! (I don’t make any money off the links below. I’ll always let you know if I’m sharing an affiliate or sponsored link.)

I usually wear swim capris with the skirt attached. They are super comfortable, and they provide a little compression. Here are some from Catherine’s that are available up to size 40. They would pair great with a swim shirt like the one below.