Beyond the Diagnosis: Reclaiming Life and Purpose With Lipedema with Hiba Hamati
Release Date: 10/15/2025
MCAS vs Histamine Intolerance Why Your Body Reacts to Everything (And You’re Not Crazy)
Dear body, I’m listening
“A reaction is not a moral failure— it's information. Your body is just responding to something, and right now it's giving you signals that it doesn't want that or it needs some extra help.” —Donna Piper When every meal feels like a risk and symptoms seem to come out of nowhere, it can start to feel like the body has turned against us. Many in the chronic illness community are stuck between labels like “histamine intolerance” and “MCAS” while still getting no clear plan or validation. This conversation names what is happening in the body and why it is not “all in...
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Rest Without Guilt (When Your Worth Got Tied to Output)
Dear body, I’m listening
“Rest isn't a character flaw. It's what your body needs in order to heal from these invisible illnesses. And for some of us, it's also a grief process, because we're not just resting from task; we’re resting from the version of ourselves who thought we had to earn love through output.” —Donna Piper Ep 36 Shownotes: Podcast Platforms We talk about rest like it is simple, but for many bodies it brings guilt, fear, and shame. When worth gets tied to productivity, stopping can feel dangerous even when the body is breaking down. This conversation meets the tension...
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Is It POTS? When Standing Up Feels Like a Trap
Dear body, I’m listening
“You're not making it up. You're not weak, you're not failing. Your body is working hard to keep you upright, and you deserve support that matches the reality of that.” —Donna Piper Standing up should not require strategy, recovery time, or mental math. When heart rate spikes, dizziness hits, and showers wipe us out, the hardest part is not the symptom. It is being told nothing is wrong while our body says otherwise. Donna shares lived experience with POTS, dysautonomia, and multiple comorbidities, blending physiology with trauma-informed insight. Her work is shaped by years...
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Traveling with Chronic Illness: Germany Edition
Dear body, I’m listening
“If you're traveling with chronic illness, I want you to hear me. There is nothing wrong with you. You just have to prepare a little bit. You deserve to travel in a way that doesn't punish you, that helps you, that makes you feel good.” —Donna Piper Travel takes more out of the body than most people admit. For those living with chronic illness, the cost shows up before the suitcase is even packed. Energy drains through lines, noise, time pressure, swelling, and the fear of crashing far from home. Donna shares her real-time approach to spending a month in Germany while...
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Pack, Move, Fly, Heal: Why I’m Choosing Germany for Lipedema Surgery
Dear body, I’m listening
“Movement and less pain is why I'm doing this and why I've chosen to go to Germany.” —Donna Piper Big life changes rarely wait their turn. When health decisions collide with exhaustion, logistics, and uncertainty, clarity matters more than certainty. Donna shares the personal and medical reasoning behind traveling to Germany for lipedema surgery while managing multiple chronic conditions. This episode traces how lived experience, failed conservative treatments, and the need for long-term care shaped a choice rooted in mobility, pain reduction, and nervous system safety. Press play...
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Lipedema Surgery Vs. Non-Surgical Care… Do I Have To Choose?
Dear body, I’m listening
“Anything you choose is not weakness. It's the best for you… Instead of thinking surgery or no surgery, try this question: ‘What would make my next step safer?’... Safety is a step, not a switch.” —Donna Piper Pressure around medical choices can turn care into panic. When the body is complex and money, time, and fear are involved, certainty starts to feel like a deadline. This conversation slows that moment down and gives it room to breathe. In this episode, Donna shares her lived experience navigating lipedema and the long road of conservative care, research, and...
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Hot Flashes, Heavy Legs: Lipedema Meets Perimenopause & Menopause
Dear body, I’m listening
“Lipedema is not a willpower issue. Shame is not a treatment plan. Late diagnosis does not mean late reality. It means late recognition. Your best advocate is yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. You've just been navigating a body that hasn't been understood by the medical world yet. Be gentle with your capacity. Meet yourself where you are.” —Donna Piper Bodies can change in ways that do not follow the rules we were taught. Pain, swelling, and heaviness show up, and the explanations never quite fit. Many women carry this quietly for years, assuming it is just weight or age....
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How Trauma Rewrites Pain Part 4: Flare or Trauma Response? When the Body’s Signals Get Confusing
Dear body, I’m listening
“Flares and trauma responses often look the same because fascia remembers, the nervous system protects, and the immune system overreacts to help defend itself, and the body is trying to keep you alive, not confused. So your job isn't to decode perfectly. Your job is to offer safety consistently, because when the body feels safe, the symptoms soften, and when the symptoms soften, the story changes, and when the story changes, the healing becomes possible.” —Donna Piper The body can shift from steady to overwhelmed without warning, leaving confusion about what just took over. Pain,...
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Transformation Boundaries: Protect Energy And Design A Purposeful Life with Didi Selwa
Dear body, I’m listening
“Move forward, take action. It may happen, it may not, but it's just about putting one step in front of the other— doing that is so important. When you go forward, you realize, ‘oh, that's not for me’, but in the process, you discover what is.” —Didi Selwa Drop the guilt of being stuck and discover a movement that meets your body where it is. Press play to hear how embodiment, faith, and small practical steps shift shame, chronic illness limits, and stalled dreams into forward motion. Didi Selwa went from a 25-year banking career to a Certified Transformational Life...
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The Science of Feeling Safe: Gentle Practices to Regulate Chronic Stress with Ann Diment
Dear body, I’m listening
"We are the experts in our well-being and our own bodies, and it's important for us to advocate for ourselves. We're not defined by our past. Our past is gone. It's in the past, and the beliefs we formed about ourselves based on what we've been told by other people or experienced in the past aren't necessarily true." —Ann Diment Some seasons of life push us past our limits, and the body keeps score long before we understand why. Many of us try to outwork the chaos, yet the real shift begins when we finally question the version of resilience we were taught to admire. There is a quieter...
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"Trust your instinct… Our bodies sound an alarm bell that something isn’t right, and we ignore it for years. Don’t ignore it. Don't accept the bare minimum answer. Just because your labs are normal does not mean that your body is functioning optimally." —Hiba Hamati
Going to doctor after doctor, trying every tip, and still wondering why your pain and swelling never make sense. You know there’s something happening that nobody else seems to see, and not getting answers just wears you down. This chat right here puts a name to all that frustration.
Hiba Hamati has been through the misdiagnoses, the surgery rollercoaster, the self-doubt, and all the “shoulds” that never quite fit to finally figuring out what actually helps. Now, she’s sharing what it’s really like to deal with lipedema: the messy, honest stuff plus a few wins along the way.
Listen in as Donna sits with Hiba to talk about the suffering of getting misdiagnosed, getting correctly diagnosed (at last), the good and bad of surgery, how body image messes with your head, daily survival tricks, what support really looks like, and why it pays to speak up.
Connect with Donna:
Website: https://www.donnapiper.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnapiper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedonnapiper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedonnapiper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedonnapiper
Episode Highlights:
02:58 Anger to Advocacy: Discovering Lipedema
08:06 Facing Unmet Expectations
13:37 Wrestling with Body Image and Grief
24:27 The Unseen Emotional Toll and Daily Life Calculations
31:24 Life After Surgery: Trauma, Identity, and Breaking Free
38:51 Life Before and After Diagnosis
43:45 Finding What Works and Letting Go
48:33 Support and Advocacy
58:28 Naming the Invisible Battles: Finding Body Neutrality and Appreciation
01:04:11 Giving Back: Turning Pain Into Meaning
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Some pain steals life in quiet ways no doctor's report shows. Hear the truth about living with lipedema: hard lessons, true support, and tiny wins that matter with “Lipediva” Hiba Hamati. #DearBodyImListening #MCAS #Lymphedema #Lipedema #ChronicIllness #selfadvocacy #mentalhealth #invisibleillness #painmanagement #bodyacceptance #supportcommunity #healthjourney
Quotes:
04:21 "Anger destroyed me for a while, because that's all I could focus on. It's just how much of my life had been wasted, how much different my life could have been had I had a proper diagnosis. I realized I could let anger consume and destroy me, or I could funnel it into passion for helping others, for advocating for patients." —Hiba Hamati
07:01 "Just because someone doesn’t have the time or resources doesn’t mean they have to live with this horrible condition without knowing treatment options or ways to manage it." —Hiba Hamati
08:11 "We’re very fortunate to have more and more surgeons well versed in lipedema, but an area that is severely lacking is post-op mental health care." —Hiba Hamati
08:40 "It is a huge undertaking to have surgery. When you focus on the physical but not give proper attention to the mental and emotional toll, it can be very dangerous." —Hiba Hamati
13:16 ""When you’re not feeling well, recovering, and you’ve never had it before, you don’t really know what to expect. It’s brand new. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear—what if it’s worse than before?" —Donna Piper
17:06 "Sitting in that grief of never having a typical, standard body… I'm shaming myself because I can't make it look like how I want it to look. [It’s important to] pause on that for your mental health and deal with those feelings. " —Donna Piper
18:42 "Your feelings really do influence your thoughts. It’s not always the thoughts going down. You can't trick yourself into believing something that you know is not true." —Donna Piper
20:03 "I have to address the disconnect with my body... For so many years, everything hurt, nothing felt good, and I just wasn’t aware of what my body was doing." —Hiba Hamati
25:22 "Pain makes you a completely different person. It chips away a little bit every day, and one day you look and there’s a big gaping hole." —Hiba Hamati
45:44 "You have to constantly reassess and figure out where you put your time, because if you keep trying to do everything all the time, you’ll end up doing nothing." —Hiba Hamati
47:50 "Trauma does change how we perceive things—it's also trying to realistically see how we were before, and how far we've come." —Hiba Hamati
53:33 "Trust your instinct… Our bodies sound an alarm bell that something isn’t right, and we ignore it for years. Don’t ignore it. Don't accept the bare minimum answer. Just because your labs are normal does not mean that your body is functioning optimally." —Hiba Hamati
57:03 “Chronic Illness of any kind is very, very difficult to manage… Try to anchor and ground your body and your emotions are so critical.” —Hiba Hamati
58:35 “Maybe you don't love it, but having a different appreciation is the first step to that road.” —Donna Piper
01:00:01 “When you think about your body carrying all of that excess weight and still functioning normally— that's phenomenal!” —Hiba Hamati
01:01:29 “It's the things you can't see that are way more painful and debilitating.” —Donna Piper
01:04:05 “Putting meaning towards our life too, is when you heal your trauma.” —Donna Piper
01:05:10 "Being able to turn that pain into something helpful really makes it feel less cruel. It feels cruel to have gone through this for so long because it feels like so much of my life was stolen by this disease in so many different ways." —Hiba Hamati
01:05:58 "It’s not about enduring something— it’s about acceptance, forgiveness. It could be messy and raw and that makes life more exciting and living the pain ‘worth’ it." —Donna Piper
Connect with Hiba:
Hiba Hamati is a prominent advocate and educator in the lipedema community, widely known as “Lipediva.” As a board member of the American Lipedema Association, she leverages both her personal experience with lipedema and her professional commitment to raise awareness, improve care, and advance research for this chronic condition.
Hiba is an international speaker and thought leader, frequently presenting on the challenges of diagnosis, the importance of mental health in chronic illness, and empowering patients to advocate for their needs. Through her online presence and community work, she offers support and guidance for those navigating lipedema and related health challenges.
Website: https://thelipediva.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.lipediva/