“There’s absolutely no need to worry when you come to an appointment here because the welcome is always so warm.”

Our specialist lymphoedema clinic provides care to help people with both cancer and non-cancer related lymphoedema and lipoedema continue living life their way.

For the past decade, Zoe has been a patient of the clinic, receiving advice, guidance and treatment from our highly trained specialist nurses.

Zoe now runs an Instagram page – thickthighsandpositivevibes - dedicated to lipoedema awareness and body positivity. Here, she shares more about her experience at Teesside Hospice:

“Hi, I’m Zoe. I was diagnosed with lipoedema ten years ago. I’ve been a patient of Teesside Hospice for those 10 years.

I was originally referred for lymphoedema, however a specialist nurse then told me I had lipoedema.

As soon as I walked through the door and she did an assessment, she told me I had a condition called lipoedema. I’d never heard of this condition before, and she explained it so well. She did say that pregnancy can be a trigger for this condition, and at the time, I was nine weeks pregnant!

The main treatment that the hospice can provide for lipoedema is compression therapy. There are many different types of garments that you can wear, and I’ve found that compression leggings work best for me.

I get regular six-monthly appointments and at these appointments, my skin is checked, my legs are checked, my overall wellbeing is checked, and my measurements are also checked.

If there has been a change in my legs, we will then do more measurements for more compression garments.

Whenever someone comes up to me and thinks they may have lipoedema, I always suggest they get a referral to Teesside Hospice.

The staff here are amazing, they are so knowledgeable, they are so helpful, and they are very informative.

The accessibility as well is excellent.

There’s absolutely no need to worry when you come to an appointment here because the welcome is always so warm.

One thing I would always recommend is if you’re from the Tees Valley area and you do think you may have lipoedema, go to your doctors, advocate for yourself and say you would like a referral to Teesside Hospice, where the wonderful staff here will then be able to say whether you do or do not have this condition

If you do have this condition, there’s absolutely no need to worry. There’s plenty of support and there are so many people out there who can help as well.”