Love Island Star helped me to find “fat -built” condition

Emma Griffiths was aware of the fact that her legs had become disproportionate with the rest of her body.

But it was only when she watched Love Island one night that the nurse noticed Candidate Shayghna Phillips Had the same shape legs – and started researching something.

Experts online suggested that Shayghna Lipoedema and amateur triathlete Emma then knew: “That was what I had, I’m not just obese”.

The 35-year-old mother has now joined the demands to receive more support for people with lipoedema for the NHS.

Lipoedema causes fat abnormally, mainly in the hips, buttocks and legs, which leads to a disproportionate form.

The exact cause of the chronic state is unknown, but not out of overweight.

Lipoedema can be caused by changes in the hormones and is assumed that it has an impact About each of ten people worldwide – Although many don’t know that they have it.

Emma was about eleven years old when her legs were heavy and pounded and said they started to grow bigger.

“I looked in the mirror and thought something is wrong here. Why do my legs differ from girls my age? ‘” She recalled.

Although Emma’s lower half led a healthy lifestyle and at some point lost five stone, she remained larger and she suspected that something was wrong.

“I thought that wasn’t reacting to nutrition and moving hier,” said the two-year-old mother from Ammanford in Carmarthenshire.

“If I haven’t seen Shayghna Phillips on Love IslandI don’t think I had known that I had lipoedema … or the diagnosis at this point.

“I went to the GP and he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Although Emma had some NHS support, he asked to be transferred to lymphedema clinic, and a private surgeon diagnosed them Lipoedema in the stage two in 2022.

The liposuction removed four liters of fat from her thigh, and while Emma said it helped, she said that it hadn’t healed her condition.

She now manages it through a healthy lifestyle, carries compression stockings and dry her skin. She says that helps with swelling and pain relief.

Gemma Robinson also has to struggle with lipoedema, and before her operation her legs were estimated to weigh 11 stone (70 kg).

The 45-year-old spent almost £ 70,000 for eight operations over two years to remove 86 liters of fat and excess skin.

“Every time I returned to the clinic, my legs grew,” said Cardiff’s two -time mother.

Gemma said at some point that she was almost home-bound and could only run through the help of a stroller or shopping cart.

Although she had lost nine and a half stone, she said that it was mainly from her upper half.

“My mobility decreased and I would end up in a wheelchair in a wheelchair, with my children sliding me,” she said.

Gemma went back and forth for years to her family doctor, where she claims that her symptoms were “thrown” and was put down on obesity until she saw something on TV and asked for a transfer.

“A doctor said to me: If I would give you a salad leaf for the rest of your life, you would still not lose much more weight,” she recalled.

Gemma was diagnosed Lipoedema in the stage four and secondary Lymphedema.

She said an operation was “life -changing”, but the psychological effects are “terrible” and now has body dysmorphia and scars.

“Living lipoedema is very difficult,” said Gemma. “If I was diagnosed earlier, I wouldn’t have thought all my life, I was just fatal that it was my fault.”

Gemma claimed that she was offered compression therapy at the NHS and believed that the support of women with lipoedema was missing.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) – which advises which medication and treatments should be available on the NHS – said that The use of liposuction in chronic lipoedema was not recommendedexcept for research.

They said there were not enough evidence of how safe and effective it was. Current treatments include changes to lifestyle and compression.

The BBC spoke to 15 women in England and Wales with lipoedema, and many influencers and their own research have led to their diagnosis.

Some claimed that the GPS had dismissed symptoms as a “severe attack of cellulite”, “growing pain”, obesity and arthritis.

A teenager said she was ready to use her inheritance to finance liposuction while another woman said she was using her pension funds and was ready to sell her house to finance her daughter’s operation.

Two women said they had developed eating disorders – and two more said they felt suicide.

In the course of eight months in 2024, an NHS body set up in Wales for the disease of 8,485 women – and lipoedema was diagnosed at more than 5% (459), with freedom of information from the BBC being known.

This number is the “tip of the iceberg” after a specialized charity organization lipoedema, which demanded more specialists who can diagnose the condition.

“It is absolutely annoying that a treatable disease like this ignores and that women are brought to the scrap heap,” said Lipoedema UK’s research manager, Dr. Lesley Steinitz.

Lymphedema specialist Dr. Cheryl Pike also wants to raise awareness of GPS.

“If someone could believe and know their patient that every medical specialist can refer, this will make a big difference,” said Dr. Pike from the lymphedema clinical network.

The network operated by the seven Health Board started with the first Psychological support service its kind in Great Britain.

You want the Welsh government to help finance research in order to determine the effectiveness of liposuction for people with lipoedema.

The Welsh government said that it worked closely with the NHS lymphoedem network to raise awareness of lipoedema.

“The liposuction is available for a small group of patients with limb hypertrophy and is of the greatest need,” added a government spokesman.

“This could possibly be patients with lymphedema and lipoedema.

“Those patients who only have lipoedema are not justified for liposuction because it is against good instructions.”

NHS England was asked to make a comment.