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Meet Your Host and Summit Founder: Erika Schlick
The Lipedema Summit is hosted and created by Erika Schlick, a certified health coach, author, blogger, and founder of The Trail To Health, a platform dedicated to helping people navigate complex chronic health conditions.
For more than a decade, Erika has documented her personal health journey while interviewing doctors, researchers, and practitioners across many areas of integrative medicine.
Her work focuses on one core mission:
helping people better understand their bodies so they can make informed decisions about their health.
That same philosophy ultimately led to the creation of the Lipedema Summit.
A Health Journey That Changed Everything
Erika’s work in health education began with her own battle with chronic illness.
In 2012, after a camping trip to Yosemite, she developed a mysterious illness that would take years to diagnose. After visiting doctor after doctor and undergoing countless tests, she was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease and multiple co-infections, along with several autoimmune conditions including Hashimoto’s disease, Celiac disease, psoriasis, and alopecia.
For years her symptoms were debilitating. There were periods when she could barely get out of bed, could not work, and struggled with extreme fatigue and neurological symptoms.
Determined to understand what was happening in her body, Erika began researching treatment options, documenting her experience publicly, and eventually pursuing integrative therapies that helped her regain her health.
After years of treatment, including stem cell therapy using her own cells, Erika was able to bring her Lyme disease into remission and return to an active life.
Her journey inspired the creation of The Trail To Health, where she shares her experiences and interviews experts to help others navigating chronic illness.
Early Signs of Lipedema
Although Erika would not receive a Lipedema diagnosis until 2024, she can now recognize signs that appeared much earlier in life.
As a teenager and throughout her twenties, she noticed certain physical characteristics that never quite made sense. Her legs were always larger than the rest of her body, and her knees appeared padded with little visible kneecap definition. She often joked about having “thunder thighs,” assuming it was simply part of her natural body shape.
At the time, there was no reason to suspect anything more.
Like many women with Lipedema, the condition remained largely unnoticed and misunderstood for years.
When Symptoms Became Aggressive
After recovering from Lyme disease, Erika underwent stem cell therapy in 2016, which was instrumental in helping restore her health.
However, not long after the treatment, something unexpected began happening.
Her body started changing rapidly.
Weight gain began appearing in patterns that did not make sense. Despite clean nutrition, exercise, hormone testing, thyroid support, and numerous medical interventions, the weight continued to accumulate—primarily in her legs, arms, and torso.
The changes were dramatic and confusing.
Her legs felt heavy and swollen, her body composition changed, and nothing she tried seemed to reverse the progression.
For years she visited doctors, ran lab tests, adjusted diet and lifestyle strategies, and experimented with numerous treatments, yet no clear explanation emerged.
It would take nearly eight years before the real cause was finally identified.
The Diagnosis That Explained It All
In early 2024, a physician mentioned Lipedema, a condition Erika had never heard of before.
As she began researching and connecting with the Lipedema community, she immediately recognized the patterns.
The symptoms, the swelling, the hormonal relationship, the lymphatic involvement, the disproportionate fat distribution—it all finally made sense.
Three different doctors confirmed the diagnosis: late Stage 1 / early Stage 2 Lipedema.
For the first time, the years of confusion had an explanation.
You can read Erika’s full story here:
→ Erika’s Lipedema Journey
https://thetrailtohealth.com/blog/my-lipedema-journey
Turning Experience Into Education
Following her diagnosis, Erika underwent several lymph-sparing liposuction procedures, working with leading surgeons who specialize in Lipedema treatment.
The results were life-changing.
But the experience also reinforced something she had learned through her Lyme journey:
patients often struggle to find clear, trustworthy information when facing complex conditions.
Much of the information about Lipedema online can feel fragmented, technical, or difficult to interpret.
That realization inspired Erika to take the conversations she had been having with doctors and researchers through her podcast and expand them into something larger.
Conversations With Leading Experts
Through The Trail To Health Podcast, Erika has interviewed numerous clinicians and specialists discussing Lipedema, including topics such as:
• diagnosis and staging
• lymphatic health
• surgical treatment options
• long-term management strategies
• metabolic and hormonal factors
These conversations eventually became the foundation for bringing many of those voices together into one place.
You can explore Erika’s Lipedema podcast conversations here:
→ Lipedema Podcast Episodes
https://thetrailtohealth.com/podcast/category/Lipedema
Why Erika Created the Lipedema Summit
The Lipedema Summit was created to bring together leading experts, clinicians, and patient advocates in one place to discuss the condition in a clear, educational format.
Rather than fragmented information scattered across the internet, the summit provides structured conversations designed to help attendees better understand:
• how Lipedema is diagnosed
• conservative care strategies
• surgical options and recovery
• long-term health considerations
• emerging research in the field
For Erika, the summit represents something deeply personal.
It is the event she wishes existed when she was trying to understand what was happening in her own body.
Go deeper
Watch the full sessions in the replay library
Keep reading
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5 Signs Your ‘Stubborn Weight’ Might Be Lipedema
If you've spent years being told to simply eat less and move more while your lower body stays stubbornly disproportionate […] Read more
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· Aug 26, 2026
News
Connection, Education, and Progress at the 2026 Lipedema Summit Live Event
Physicians continued discussing evolving standards of care. Patients shared personal stories and treatment experiences. Sponsors, clinicians, and wellness partners answered questions while new connections formed between people who, only hours earlier, had been strangers. It was perhaps the clearest sign that the 2026 Lipedema Summit Live Event had achieved its purpose. Held on June 11, 2026, in Downtown Los Angeles, the event brought together patients, clinicians, surgeons, researchers, therapists, advocates, caregivers, and industry partners for an evening centered on education, awareness, and connection. While the virtual Lipedema Summit was designed to reach thousands of people around the world, the live event created something equally valuable: the opportunity for meaningful conversations to happen face-to-face. Throughout the evening, attendees engaged directly with leading experts, explored emerging research, discussed treatment approaches, and exchanged experiences with others navigating similar challenges. Conversations ranged from evolving standards of care and surgical outcomes to conservative therapies, patient advocacy, and the future of Lipedema research. For many attendees, the event offered something difficult to find elsewhere: direct access to experts, honest conversations, and the opportunity to connect with others who truly understand the realities of living with Lipedema. Long after the final panel concluded, those conversations continued, reflecting both the growing momentum within the Lipedema community and the shared commitment to advancing awareness, education, and patient care.
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· Jun 21, 2026
Sponsor Feature
Why Tactile Medical Is Bringing Pneumatic Compression Therapy Into the Lipedema Conversation
When most people think about Lipedema, they think about abnormal fat accumulation. They think about disproportionately larger legs, pain, tenderness, easy bruising, and the frustration of trying countless diets and exercise programs without seeing meaningful changes.
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· Jun 1, 2026
Sponsor Feature
Inside Lipemedical’s Specialized Approach to Lipedema Surgery
For many women living with Lipedema, finding a surgeon is only part of the challenge. Finding a team that truly understands the disease is often much harder.
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· Jun 1, 2026
Sponsor Feature
Inside Lipedema Team’s Multidisciplinary Approach to Lipedema Care
For many women diagnosed with Lipedema, the healthcare journey can feel fragmented.
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· Jun 1, 2026
Sponsor Feature
How Mochi Health Is Personalizing Access to GLP 1 Treatment
GLP 1 medications have changed the conversation around obesity, metabolic health, inflammation, and chronic disease. For many patients, they have opened doors that previously felt out of reach. Yet as these medications become more widely available, a new challenge has emerged: access does not always equal quality care.
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· Jun 1, 2026
Sponsor Feature
How Compression Care Is Helping Patients Navigate Compression Therapy, Coverage, and Care
Most Lipedema patients eventually learn that compression is one of the most important parts of conservative care.
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· Jun 1, 2026
Summit Info
Lipedema Summit 2026: 3 Days, 60+ Sessions, and Over 30 Hours of Education
The 2026 Lipedema Summit brings together an extraordinary lineup of surgeons, physicians, researchers, therapists, advocates, and patients for three days of conversations focused on diagnosis, treatment, recovery, long-term management, and the future of lipedema care.
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· May 25, 2026
Education
The Emotional Side of Lipedema: Understanding the Mental and Psychological Impact
Lipedema is often discussed as a physical condition, one that affects fat distribution, lymphatic health, and metabolic function. But for the millions of women living with Lipedema, the emotional wounds can run just as deep as the physical ones. The reflection in the mirror that no longer feels like you. The constant comparisons. The judgment from strangers, doctors, and sometimes even the people closest to you. These experiences leave marks that go far beyond the body.
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· Mar 15, 2026
Education
What Is Lipedema? Understanding a Commonly Misdiagnosed Condition
Lipedema is a chronic medical condition that affects the way fat is distributed in the body. It most commonly appears in the legs, hips, and sometimes the arms, while the hands and feet are typically unaffected.
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· Mar 13, 2026