Puffy legs, heavy aches, rippled skin: what is lipedema?

This underdiagnosed condition, which causes leg pain and swelling, affects one in 10 women, yet most doctors haven’t heard of it

The first thing Becca Gold noticed was her pants.

Throughout the spring and summer of 2023, her pants stopped fitting. Her legs became puffy, with a rippled texture and heavy ache. Within a year, the 32-year-old, Austin-based podcaster went up four pant sizes, gained 30lb and found herself in constant leg pain. She had always had a little bit of cellulite, she says, but while her upper body appeared mostly unchanged, now her legs seemed to belong to a “different person, overnight”.