Hi friends!
I’ve been a busy bee behind the scenes, getting ready to attend the Fat Disorders Resource Society Annual Conference in Atlanta this weekend. I’m super excited after having attended last year in Cleveland.
This conference is so important to the lipedema community. It’s the only time each year that lipedema patients gather to be part of an in person community with fellow patients, researchers, and medical professionals. We also have the opportunity to hear about the newest research on treatments and causes, and meet with vendors who provide services such as compression garments, pneumatic pumps, and so on to us.
When I attended last year, I was absolutely blown away by how many ladies in the room walked like me, were built like me, and who had the same struggles as I do. This experience really validated the reality of lipedema as a disease, but also showed me what various stages of development can look like. While I walked in the room with a copy of Jeans on a Beach Day for all in attendance, I had no idea of the opportunity to help that stood before me. I was really inspired to serve more, fight more, and educate more to help prevent disease progression in as many ways as possible. And I have honored that promise this last year. I’ve spoken to numerous groups, blogged, wrote videos, published another book, and completed design of footwear for lipedema ladies (moving to manufacturing now). I also have been active in the lipedema education group, sharing information to the researchers and back to the patients. It’s been a good year, and I can say FDRS was the catalyst for more of the passion that I’ve developed this last year.
So, this year, I’m giving everyone at FDRS 2023 a free copy of my new book, doing two poster presentations, meeting with the Lipedema Education Group, going to dinner with the patient community, and throwing in a photo shoot for legslikemine at a cool museum with a photographer and everything! I’m excited! I hope to blog and take a ton of pictures while I’m there, but for now, I’m off to get my hair done, because you know, I have to look right!
Have fun and hope to see a lot of you soon!
Susan
PS: A ton of the patients decided to all wear the same top for Friday night, which I think is awesome. Purple is the color of lipedema awareness. I can’t wait for pics of all of us wearing purple. How cool is that?!
This was last year’s fashion show group at FDRS 2022.
I’ll create a separate post on these topics, but here is some information on my poster presentations about aqua therapy and dressing well:
