For more than a decade, Vivien Lees-Hamilton struggled with painfully swollen legs that often felt unbearably heavy.
At times, says the 66-year-old from West Yorkshire, it felt ‘like I was walking around on tree trunks’.
In February this year, after 12 years of symptoms, Vivien finally discovered the cause: she was diagnosed with lipoedema – a little-understood condition that causes an abnormal build-up of fatty tissue, usually in the legs and sometimes the arms.
But she was reluctant to try the treatments commonly recommended to manage the condition, including tight compression garments and prescription painkillers.
‘And while I know some people find compression garments
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