Did anybody see This Morning on Wednesday this week?

The lovely and very brave Claire Tickle was on the show with Phil and Amanda, talking about her lipoedema, and how it’s affected her life. She looked absolutely amazing, and she gave a really good interview.

If you missed the interview, you can still catch it on the This Morning website:

Claire’s This Morning Interview

You might not know, but if it wasn’t for lipoedema, there would be no Wingz.

Michelle Ellis, founder and designer of Wingz, is another sufferer (in fact she accompanied Michelle to the This Morning interview) and she came up with the idea out of necessity.

The lipoedema Michelle suffered from had left her with larger than average arms, which made her feel self-conscious- and so she wanted to cover them up. The fact that at the time it seemed that all of her friends were getting married, and all the dresses Michelle owned seemed to be sleeveless wasn’t helping, because it was a hot summer. Michelle didn’t want to have to carry a cardigan or shrug around with her all day, so she came up with an ingenious solution, and Wingz were born.

So, what is lipoedema?

Well, it’s a condition which almost exclusively affects women, giving them large lower limbs that are similar in shape and size on both sides.
There is often a very distinctive pad of fat below the knees and in some cases, there’s a similar area on the thighs that looks a little bit like a ‘saddle bag’. The thighs, hips and buttocks often tend to be disproportionately larger than the upper body, and the feet and hands are hardly ever affected.

In lipoedema the tissues can seem to be loose and floppy, pale and cold to the touch. Sometimes it feels tender or even painful. Sufferers bruise very easily and sometimes have no idea where a bruise has come from. Lipoedema is said to affect one in eleven women, but it’s notoriously under-diagnosed, with doctors dismissing it as obesity and sending women away with a diet sheet to lose weight.

If this sounds like you there’s a fantastic support group also set up by Michelle, called Lipoedema Ladies.

A massive well done to Claire for spreading the word on This Morning!