From Dr. McCluskey:
Expertise in any craft or discipline takes time, hard work, and dedication. Expertise in a specific area of medicine doesn’t come easily and it happens slowly and long after medical school and residency is complete. I have seen, evaluated, and diagnosed hundreds of lipedema patients. There are no shortcuts. Each patient has a unique and important story and every lipedema patient is unique. Every treatment plan must be customized to the individual. I see many patients who are excellent candidates for lipedema liposuction and who will benefit greatly from this treatment. I also see patients who suspect lipedema as a diagnosis but are an early stage 1 and may be too early in the process to see a benefit from liposuction. In these patients we will recommend nonsurgical treatment and re-evaluate them. Likewise we encounter some patients who are either too advanced into late stage 4 or they have other severe comorbidities and conditions that prevent them from undergoing liposuction.
Long before I built an expertise in lipedema, I founded and grew a well established cosmetic liposuction practice. I have performed cosmetic liposuction for many years on thousands of patients but cosmetic liposuction is very different than lipedema liposuction. A great deal of the work with cosmetic liposuction focuses on the abdomen, back, and torso, or for focused areas like the inner thigh or upper arm. Fine cannulas are often used to create smooth contours with minimal to no visible scarring. Similar techniques are applied to lipedema liposuction which generally focuses on the arms and legs.
As I transitioned to a practice dedicated to lipedema patients I developed a sustained expertise in lipedema liposuction techniques, and post operative recovery. As stated above this requires hard work – days, weeks, months, and years of performing lipedema liposuction. It is physically demanding work and the truth is, it’s not for everyone. Many physicians prefer a less physically demanding style of practice. I genuinely enjoy the process and the activity, and most importantly helping patients achieve symptomatic relief and great results.
One very important aspect of lipedema liposuction is that the surgical procedure is only the beginning – the postoperative garments and wrapping are critical and properly applying these dressings and wraps takes time and expertise by the surgical team after the procedure. Similar to performing lipedema liposuction expertly, fitting patients with garments and applying the wraps correctly takes time and dedication. It cannot be learned or perfected overnight or with a weekend course. Expertise in postoperative care requires working with lipedema patients on a daily basis for many years.
I fix cankles, thunder thighs, and bat wings.
Cankles is one of those terrible, insulting words used to describe body parts; it’s a word that insecure people use to demean others. But it has found its way into the lipedema rhetoric. Occasionally, patients will arrive for a consult saying “I’ve always had cankles.” It isn’t a nice word but it is completely descriptive and with the mention of that word, I immediately understand what that patient has been going through and how she’s felt about her appearance for a significant part of her life.
So it is with great pride that I say I fix cankles. If a woman has struggled with disproportionally large legs, calves, and ankles there is hope. There is a solution. Liposuction with correct postoperative garments and wraps fixes cankles. I fix saddle bags, thunder thighs, and bat wing arms. These are offensive terms by nature, and maybe they don’t belong on a medical website, but it’s important to know that if you’ve ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought about some of these words, there are very real, very accessible solutions.