Fascia Medicine · The Fascia Institute Network

Our FLIP Coordinator Is at the 2026 Lipedema Summit
Learning everything she can — for our patients.

Hannah Reynolds, LPN — coordinator of our physician-directed FIT Lipedema & Inflammation Program (FLIP) — is spending June 10–12 at the virtual Lipedema Summit, bringing the field’s newest evidence straight back to the people we treat.

This week our team is doing what we ask of every clinician at The Fascia Institute: showing up to learn. Hannah Reynolds, LPN, the coordinator of our FIT Lipedema & Inflammation Program (FLIP), is attending the 2026 Lipedema Summit — a three-day virtual gathering (June 10–12) of the surgeons, lymphatic therapists, researchers, and advocates moving lipedema care forward.

Lipedema is one of the most under-diagnosed conditions we see. Patients are told for years that their disproportionate, painful leg and arm fat is “just weight” — that they need to diet harder. They don’t. Lipedema is a connective-tissue and inflammatory disease, and it requires a physician-directed plan that treats the biology, not the bathroom scale.

That is why Hannah is at the Summit — to bring the newest evidence on metabolic medications, lymphatic and surgical pathways, and the science of why lipedema tissue hurts back to the patients in our program.

01 · Who Is Going — and Why

Hannah Reynolds, LPN — FLIP Program Coordinator.

Hannah is the day-to-day coordinator of the FIT Lipedema & Inflammation Program (FLIP) — the patient she greets at intake is the same patient she follows through compression, lymphatic work, fascial treatment, and medical management. That continuity is the point of the program, and it is why we sent Hannah, specifically, to the Summit: what she learns does not sit in a binder. It reaches your visit.

FLIP is physician-directed, built and overseen by Dr. Jacques Courseault. It treats lipedema as what it is — a fascial and inflammatory disease — and combines the conservative, regenerative, and medical tools that actually move the disease, under one coordinated plan.

Explore the FLIP Program →

02 · On the Summit Agenda

What Hannah is learning for our patients.

03 · The Science

GLP-1 medications in lipedema: why the interest is real.

For years the standard advice to lipedema patients — “eat less, move more” — failed, because lipedema fat resists diet and exercise in a way ordinary fat does not. So the question clinicians now ask is sharper: not can we make a patient smaller, but can we treat the inflammation and fibrosis that make lipedema tissue grow, hurt, and harden?

That is where GLP-1 receptor agonists — and dual GIP/GLP-1 agents like tirzepatide — have drawn serious attention. A 2026 paper in Dermatologic Surgery, co-authored by Lipedema Summit co-host Dr. David Amron, lays out the rationale for targeting the inflammation and fibrosis of lipedema with GLP-1 therapy — a mechanism-first argument rather than a weight-loss one (Mohseni et al., 2026). A 2025 narrative review in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences makes a parallel case for tirzepatide as a potential disease-modifying therapy, bridging metabolism, inflammation, and fibrosis (Viana et al., 2025).

The honest summary: this is a promising, fast-moving area — not a settled one. That is exactly why GLP-1 therapy in our program is physician-directed: prescribed, dosed, and monitored by Dr. Courseault as one part of a coordinated plan, never a stand-alone “lipedema shot.”

04 · Why It Hurts

Lipedema is a fascia disease. That is why it is painful.

Lipedema is not “fat that hurts” by coincidence. The pain comes from the connective tissue and fascia woven through the affected fat — the same fascial system that is the entire focus of our institute. In lipedema the fibrous septa thicken, the tissue becomes inflamed and fibrotic, microvessels change, and the nerves running through that matrix become sensitized.

The evidence increasingly frames lipedema this way. A 2025 study found that lipedema and hypermobility spectrum disorders share pathophysiology — a common connective-tissue thread we see constantly in our hypermobility and EDS patients (Fiengo & Sbarbati, 2025). A 2026 study documented the distinctly neuropathic features of lipedema pain, separating it from the swelling-driven discomfort of lymphedema (Pervane & Uzun, 2026). And the 2026 Lipedema World Alliance consensus paper anchors the modern, physician-led definition and management of the disease (Kruppa et al., 2026).

If lipedema pain lives in the fascia, then treating the fascia is treating the disease. That is the thesis The Fascia Institute was built on — and the reason a fascia-first practice is positioned to help with a condition most clinics still mistake for ordinary weight gain.

05 · Our Methods

How the FLIP program treats lipedema — and the fascial pain underneath it.

We don’t treat lipedema with a single tool. FLIP is a coordinated, physician-directed plan that addresses the inflammation, the lymphatic load, and — critically — the fascial restriction that drives the pain.

1. Physician-directed medical management. Dr. Courseault evaluates and, where appropriate, prescribes and monitors anti-inflammatory and metabolic therapy — including GLP-1 medication — as one piece of the plan, not a substitute for it.
2. Hydrofascia Release™ for fascial restriction. Our ultrasound-guided fascial hydrodissection technique addresses the deep fibrotic septa and fascial adhesion that surface therapies cannot reach — the structural source of much lipedema pain.
3. Active lymphatic drainage & compression. Lymphatic work and properly fitted compression reduce the fluid and inflammatory load the tissue is carrying.
4. Anti-inflammatory nutrition & lifestyle. Targeted at the inflammatory biology of the disease — not generic dieting, which lipedema fat resists.
5. One coordinated plan. Hannah keeps the pieces connected so the patient experiences a program, not a stack of disconnected appointments.

See how it all fits together on the FIT Lipedema & Inflammation Program page.

06 · Selected Literature

References we draw on at FIT.

Get Evaluated

If your leg or arm pain has been dismissed as “just weight,” let’s look again.

The FIT Lipedema & Inflammation Program is a physician-directed plan for the connective-tissue disease most clinics miss. Hannah and the FLIP team are ready to help — with the newest evidence from the 2026 Lipedema Summit already in hand.

Explore the FLIP Program →

Los Angeles patients: call (424) 378-3488 to be connected with the program.

The Fascia Institute · FIT Los Angeles

Medical disclaimer. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. GLP-1 and other prescription therapies carry risks and are appropriate only for selected patients under physician supervision. Consult a qualified clinician before starting or changing any treatment.