What Endometriosis Might Teach Us About Lipedema Pain

A new study explores how hormones, immune cells and the nervous system may be connected, but much of the lipedema science is still only a hypothesis.

I’ve been thinking a lot about women’s health in general. Lipedema is one thing, but over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken to so many women from different parts of the world. Many of them seem to share similar patterns, even though their lives and health journeys are completely different.

Some of them may never speak to each other. Their paths may never cross. But perhaps they can cross here, in the comments. I also want to give space to the stories that are not my own.

I do not have endometriosis, but some of you do.

This is something I often notice in lipedema communities. People are trying to understand their bodies by asking questions like “Does anyone else experience this too?”

In a large community, you will often find someone who recognises your experience. But that does not automatically mean there is a biological connection. Sometimes two conditions simply exist in the same body. Sometimes they may share a mechanism. And sometimes we do not yet know.

Lipedema research is still young. We do not have strong consensus on how lipedema may be connected to many other conditions. We do know that lipedema often appears or changes during hormonal stages of life, including puberty, pregnancy and menopause. This is one of the reasons researchers suspect that hormones are involved in some way. But we do not yet know exactly how.

Some possible connections are still more interesting than others. One of them is the relationship between lipedema and other conditions that mainly affect women, such as endometriosis and PCOS.

These are not conditions I live with myself, so this article is not really written for “me”. But it may be written for you.

There is a new study that looks at endometriosis and lipedema side by side and asks whether some of the pain in both conditions may be driven by similar communication between hormones, immune cells and the nervous system. Become a LipedemaScience member to access every article in the library.