This Morning star Josie Gibson has revealed the £7,000 liposuction she paid for on her calves.
The TV presenter, 40, was diagnosed with lipoedema, a chronic condition that causes an abnormal build-up of fat in the legs and sometimes arms.
Speaking to This Morning hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley after returning from holiday in Thailand, Josie addressed rumours that she had lost six stone.
‘I always knew something wasn’t right with my body, but I didn’t know what lipoedema was at all,’ she said.
‘I just decided to say I had it a couple of days ago, there’s been so many articles about my body losing five stone, losing six stone, I wish I’d lost that much weight, but I haven’t.
‘I thought I’d better be honest, I got diagnosed about a year ago, and I have just been in surgery, well, in September I had surgery.’
Josie explained how she feels her legs appear disconnected from the rest of her frame and said as she is getting older ‘it is getting worse… [and] I can see it all in my arms now as well’.
Despite the fact that Josie trains and lifts weights, she said she decided to ‘go down the surgery route now’.
Discussing her procedure, she revealed how she underwent lipo treatment followed by vasering, which involves burning the inner layer of skin, causing it to contract and tighten.
But, for the 40-year-old, it was her ‘last resort’ as she said the ‘last thing I wanted to do is put myself through surgery’.
What is lipoedema?
Lipoedema (or lipedema) is a chronic condition primarily affecting women, which causes abnormal, symmetrical fat buildup usually in the hips, thighs, buttocks and sometimes arms.
It creates a disproportionate body shape where the legs/arms are large but the feet/hands remain unaffected.
The condition is often genetic and starts around hormonal changes as the fat doesn’t respond well to diet/exercise, leading to easy bruising, heaviness, and tenderness, which is often misdiagnosed as obesity.
Management involves compression, massage, diet, exercise and sometimes liposuction, to manage symptoms and prevent progression.
So far, Josie has only had the operation on her calves as you cannot get surgery ‘all at once’.
Acknowledging that many people are not in as fortunate a position as her, she confessed that ‘it’s a lot of money at a time’.
She added that she paid ‘over £7,000 for just my calves, and you split it up into sections, so it is a lot of money’.
This comes after Josie revealed last year she was diagnosed with a disease she thought was normally only reserved for 16th-century kings.
The This Morning star said she was ‘really embarrassed’ to learn that she had ‘really high’ levels of uric acid and pain in her toes, leading doctors to suspect she had been struggling with gout.
‘I thought only kings like Henry VIII and old men got gout,’ Josie confessed at the time.
Prior to this, Josie shed light on her ‘frightening’ cancer scare when she found a ‘large lump’ on her breast, which saw her remove her breast implants.
This Morning is available to watch on ITV on weekdays.
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