Fat calves…

Have you ever heard people saying that before? I always thought I have “fat calves” due to the fact my mom has the same bulging calves. I never had that problem before puberty, skinny at the time due to constant activity in the village; but once I hit puberty I was a “big girl”, chubby for some and fat for others.

However, it didn’t occur to me when I lost around 10kg of my weight after Australia that my “calves remained the same”.

Having my dad the only person who has the skinny normal calves where we always joked how nice the kids take after him, I didn’t know that my situation could actually be a disease.

But what is Lipedema actually?

Let’s let the experts explain to us.

Source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17175-lipedema

After reading that it makes sense when I started walking too much my calves started swelling and with the recent consistent hospital runs, it has been indeed, uncomfortable; but I never really take notice of that until one of the intern medical student asked me,

“ma’am, are you okay? Your legs look swelling a lot. Are you having severe water retention? Shouldn’t you go to a doctor and get this checked?”

However, if I am looking at water retention issue, my feet would have been the same, but they are skinny as bones (probably due to tons of walking).

The more I read on that website the more I am very much convinced that I do have signs of lipedema that I have never noticed.

I mean, if you can see the cellulite on my calves, there actually is no water retention, but a lot of fat build up throughout the years (I think during the time when I was heavier)

Without direct medical solutions other than liposuction, which is both painful and expensive, I was praying for God’s healing and also looking for alternatives.

Lo and behold, YouTube suddenly came out with this recommendation when I was looking to know more about Lipedema, and just so happened I just acquired these “fat busting shakers” (partly also to help my mom’s legs as advertisements mentioned that it does “help blood circulations” with the magnetic function)

Hopefully this that I have acquired ($8.50 USD 6 month’s installment) will help a bit.

So far my mom and I noticed that we have less “bloated calves” after 10 minutes on it and we seemed to be visiting the toilet more often. Maybe there IS some water retention because of the stubborn “permanent” fats and by “earthquake” the legs it is has managed to “release” some of the stuck water (?) and hopefully fats later.

I kept forgetting to measure my lower legs but I will try to do it tonight (it swells more at night) and keep track on the measurements to see whether will this method at least help a little.

I also acquired an air compressing calves massager and this one definitely have been helping me to somehow squeeze whatever that is stuck at my lower legs. When I used it for the first time I felt tingling numbness but once when the timer is done I actually felt like a “release blood circulation” where my leg feels a lot lighter. I have been using this every night and I actually have less leg cramps the next morning (starting from the ankle area)

This was actually acquired for my dad as he has “cholesterol clogs” at the inner ankle area (or peroneal nerves area according to doctor) that caused his drop foot syndrome, but his pain tolerance is low and he discarded it. So once I see some good result I will try to convince him to use it again and hope this will really help; because the last super painful massage he had for his calves, it has helped him to start walking better (than dragging his feet).

All photos taken by me is using my Samsung A23

Until then, stay happy and healthy!

Daily Activity, Gym, Walking