A Conversation w/ Dr. Michael Schwartz

Hello.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for being here.

I love that this conversation is happening on the heels of some conversations that we've been having with patients regarding the marriage of lipedema surgery and cosmetic surgery.

Mm-hmm.

You are a plastic surgeon.

At first, I'm just curious, what was your introduction to lipedema, and why have you dedicated some of your practice to it?

That's an interesting question.

I realized that I treated a lot of women with lipedema before I knew what lipedema was myself, and I found it...

I remember one, uh, elderly patient in particular who had probably stage three lipedema, and I could not figure out for the life of me why she had so much fat in her legs.

We were doing liposuction.

And then when I did learn about the disease, it just snowballed.

It piqued my interest, and I educated myself about it, realized that still, still most of the medical community is not aware of lipedema.

It's becoming more, uh, well-known among the medical community.

But after educating myself and treating some patients, it just snowballed, and I worked into it in that way, started attending the FDRS conferences and speaking there, and I helped publish the standard of care paper with Karen Herbst, and among various other things.

But it's, it's very rewarding because it's a really common disease, as one in nine or ten women in the country have it, and worldwide most likely, and it's overlooked.

It's misdiagnosed as obesity.

Patients, every single patient virtually tells me the same thing, that their doctor says, "Put down the fork.

Stop eating."

Right.

It's really, really a level of misunderstanding that needs to be corrected.

Yeah.

I'm curious, when you were treating these patients before knowing that lipedema is an actual condition, was it intuitive for you in those surgeries to...

Were you noticing this fat is different? It's harder.