I know what it feels like to feel like a bit of a puzzle when it comes to managing my own health. When I was diagnosed with lymphoedema and lipoedema, I spent years skipping from doctor to doctor to find out what was underlying these conditions so that I could improve my quality of life. The problem was that the doctors I saw weren’t trained to look at underlying drivers of disease – they were trained in prescribing medication. And there are no medications for these diseases, so they couldn’t help me with what I was looking for. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that food would be one of the keys – because food absolutely changes the way your body shows up in the world – I just had no idea what kinds of changes to make, and I couldn’t find one person who was able to help me make smart decisions around food, nutrients, or lifestyle modifications. So I became the practitioner I was looking for. A Clinical Nutritionist with a special interest in lymphoedema and lipoedema.

A big part of my job as a Clinical Nutritionist is problem solving, connecting the dots, finding the drivers of disease rather than just looking at a group of symptoms, and putting puzzle pieces together to create a plan where my patients can experience improved health. 

Did you know that you have a unique symptom picture?  I help a lot of women with lipoedema. Lipoedema is a disease of the connective tissue in the body which often presents with painful fat tissue, disproportionate fat distribution, unexplained and inappropriate bruising, hypermobility, chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, adrenal problems, autonomic nervous system problems, the devastating effects of long term yo-yo dieting, low calorie diets, and bariatric surgery, and emotional attachments to food that sabotage at every step. 

These beautiful women come to me with a mosaic of symptoms which create a unique picture for me to explore as a practitioner of Nutritional Medicine.  They come with similar symptoms, however their blood work and presentation of their symptoms give me real clues as to the drivers of their health problems – understanding the drivers, and addressing them simply with food, nutrients, and lifestyle modifications can lead to improvements in symptoms over the short term, and better quality of life over the long term. 

So even though I see many women with the same diagnosis, the treatment plan is never the same.  And this is because we are all unique.  Yes, we are all women with lipoedema and most of our symptoms will be similar, but the drivers of our symptoms will vary! 

Most people do much better with a ketogenic diet to help them with lipoedema, however some do well on a low carb diet.  And I’ve helped women with vegetarian and vegan protocols to improve their quality of life as well.  What will help you is going to depend largely on what I see in your blood work, the health conditions you bring to your consultation, your emotional relationship with food, your lifestyle, and the level of determination you have to physically make the changes necessary to improve your health.

Do you have a health practitioner who is willing to help you understand the pieces of your health?  Your unique symptom picture?

Rather than looking at you as a beautiful collision of body systems that need to be treated independently of the others, I look at you as a beautiful human being, with systems that intertwine and puzzle together to create the place where you are now with your health.  Your symptoms and your life story, combined with your blood work, other assessments, your medical history, and your family’s medical history paint a unique symptom picture that will reveal drivers of disease.

I’ve never found help with my own lymphoedema and lipoedema with doctors, specialists, or therapists when they only look at lymphatics, adipose tissue, or connective tissue.  My health only improved when I looked at my body as a whole organism, rather than a collection of individual systems.  Surely that makes a lot of sense!

I use a treatment system called Vitae Mosaic, which is a patient centred approach to examining you and how you got to this place in time over your entire life.  I use this system to look at the drivers of your underlying issues not just the symptoms. It’s a method of collecting information even for the most complex cases and structuring the treatment according to the drivers of disease.

If you’re looking for somebody who will listen to your story and look at your whole picture, you can book in for some time with me here https://www.nutritionalsynergy.com.au/appointments