Limb Lengthening Forum
Limb Lengthening Surgery => Limb Lengthening Discussions => Topic started by: kunta kinte on August 21, 2014, 11:48:10 PM
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hello guys. do you think external femur lengthening is a better idea then lengthening with internal nail? if so, why, and if not, why?
i know its more dangerous and can get easely infected, but when you finish lengthening and remove the device you're done forever! its not like internals which is more safe i know but can be a pain in the a** with the nails staying in your legs and having to return for more surgery.
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External femurs is excruciatingly painful and the fixators leave you even more helpless than the ones for tibiae. No way do you want to have those on your legs for 9 months or whatever.
You don't even have to get the internals removed if you think it's a hassle. In many non-cosmetic cases especially, they're simply left in forever. Some surgeons think it's not worth the risk of another major surgery just to remove internal nails.
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They aren't really painful, the main problem with them is discomfort. Especially if you decide to lengthen them both at the same time - that's a living nightmare. You can hardly put any clothes on them, you can hardly sit and imagine if you're stuck with them for like 9 month. Yea you probably don't want to do femurs externally.
(though you can do LON and remove them as soon as you've done lengthening. That's not the worse option)
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They bust up your knees range of motion but with hard work you should get it all back again.
LON on femurs is not a good idea. Apparently it puts even more stress to your knees.
Doing only 4cm external only on femurs can be done bc you can turn the device around 2millimeters a day instead of 0,66mm.
My room mate turned 2,5mm and even 3mm some days in the beginning bc his regeneration was extremely good.
Eventually the femur fused at 4cm anyway. He wanted at least 6cm.
When I was in India even I considered doing external only Ilizarov but dr Sarin told me it was a bad idea. Internals were much safer and more kind to the knees.
Exclide: How long do you have to wear the frames on your femurs to achieve 8cm?
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2millimeters a day instead of 0,66mm.
Your bones may take it but your soft tissue?
Exclide: How long do you have to wear the frames on your femurs to achieve 8cm?
However, the prolonged fixator duration tests the patience of the patient and when applied to the femur, this prolonged duration tends to increase knee stiffness.
We retrospectively compared the results and complications of two groups of patients who underwent femoral lengthening by means of callotasis with the Ilizarov external fixator. Group I underwent callotasis alone, and group II underwent callotasis with an intramedullary locking nail.
The median time index of external fixation was 50 days/cm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9071834
so that's 400 days combined with lengthening period
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Thank you guys very much! :P :P
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Even internal femurs are psychologically draining. I can't imagine external for that long.