Limb Lengthening Forum
Limb Lengthening Surgery => Limb Lengthening Patients Experiences => Topic started by: OverrideYourGenetics on April 05, 2018, 08:42:12 AM
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Hey everyone,
Three weeks ago I had the PRECICE 2 implanted in my tibias by Dr. Paley and Dr. Robbins. Today I'm going into surgery for the femurs. I'm about 1cm taller so far.
It took way longer than I wanted to post my diary, and I do want to mention one of the factors - post-op, I wasn't really myself due to the constant pain, medication, and horrible sleep. Oxycodone gets some people high, but it has made me drowsy, foggy, and apathetic. Nothing was really interesting any more. Due to the pain and uncomfortable dorsiflexion boots (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=2556.msg45977#msg45977) that tibia patients must wear 22 hours/day (http://paleyinstitute.org/centers-of-excellence/stature-lengthening/the-paley-method/physical-therapy/) in order to prevent drop foot ("ballerina"), I've been lucky to get a total of 3 hours of sleep, out of staying 12 hours in bed.
At some point around 2 weeks post-op, things did start to improve. Pain has decreased, so I needed less oxycodone. I got clearance to go into the pool, which made me feel more bipedal again. So here I am, catching up on my diary.
STATS
- Male, late 30s, 5'5", 165 lbs - more about me and the motivation for undergoing CLL (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/about/)
- Goal: 4cms in the tibias + 6cms in the femurs (4" total), or until stretching becomes too painful
- Living in Silicon Valley, so getting CLL wasn't a problem, culturally speaking
- I've even considered going public - see this background post (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5215) for more details
- Funded the surgery through loans (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/cost/)
- Bench press 1RM 205lbs
- Squat 275lbs x 3
I've been doing a lot of research that I want to share here, but spreading it over many posts in a long thread isn't a good option. Since posts can't really be edited later, I've been summing up the research on my blog - https://overrideyourgenetics.com. I also have an Instagram feed with photos at https://instagram.com/overrideyourgenetics.
Stay tuned - I'll add X-rays after the femurs surgery today, and more details about how these first three weeks went. Any questions, feel free to ask!
PS: Here's a photo from my farewell party before the surgery, with my best friends.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXu0--BVAAESo-Y.jpg:large) (https://twitter.com/OverrideGenetix/status/971569218591182849)
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Congratulations. I'm a current patient there too, although only doing femurs. I wonder if I've seen you at PT.
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It's here!
I hope everything goes smoothly with your femoral surgery, and that the next two weeks pass by faster.
Best of luck with everything, and remain strong.
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Love the blog OYG! Glad to see you did so much research. You nailed everything.
Wish you the very best in recovery. Two simultaneous surgeries must be incredibly hard. I hope that all goes well with the femurs today.
I'm just about to hit 7 CM in the femurs with Dr. M., the added
height is great. Time will pass before you know it. The last phase has been tough for me. I can't wait until it's a very distant memory.
Please keep us posted, I know it gets hard at times. Hope you're feeling well.
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Excellent start, thanks for catching us up! Hope that your second surgery went well.
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OverrideYourGenetics,
Congrats on finishing up the surgeries. I know it’s tough because I’m doing the same thing you’re doing. My surgeries were a month a part (2/15/18 & 3/15/18). I experienced none bone growth in my Tib/fib so I had to stop lengthening for 2 weeks. The reason for the none bone growth was because I was taking Ibuprofen without my doctor’s knowledge or approval. I didn’t know either and it was prescribed by my primary care doctor back at home. I’m taking my third x-ray on my Tib/Fib tomorrow so I’m hoping to see some bone growth. I’ve been worried.
The pain is getting better for me but I still can only sleep a total of 1-2 hours each night due to the pain on my left thigh. It’s so intense at night. My legs are so tight already and I’ve only lengthened less than 2 inches in total so far. How are you feeling now? Any nerve pain? Are you still on Hydrocodone or have already switched to OTC meds. I wish you the best and hope to hear from you and exchange tips with you so we can both get through this successfully.
Optimistic1
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OYG,good luck for your femur surgery
Finally a patient with verifications
Thanks a lot for documenting your experience with pics and videos,here there is the need for more true patients like you
Nice also the idea of Instagram account and blog
Keep us tunned
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Also, great idea (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26398436) of going for 4cm tibias and 6cm femurs, instead of 5cm+5cm, as I remember this being your plan before.
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wow this is great, looking forward to this diary
good luck man!
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Thanks everyone for the encouragements! Feels good to be engaged with a community of folks who care.
I'm recovering from the femurs surgery and hope to be discharged today. The hospital stay has been less pleasant than for after the tibias, for all sorts of reasons. For example, I asked for exactly the same anesthesia protocol (caudal block) that worked great on the tibs. Got something else, where I remember being in the OR and bending over to receive a shot in my back. The IVs were placed worse, the food had ants in it one time (oh well, it's Florida) etc. But overall, the nurses were very nice. However, I've has some horrible pain episodes, in the tibias (pain 9/10), which I didn't have the first time. Probably because I continued lengthening but couldn't do any real PT?
@myloginacct: nice find! I'll definitely keep to 4+6 (or 4+5 to be super safe).
OverrideYourGenetics,
The pain is getting better for me but I still can only sleep a total of 1-2 hours each night due to the pain on my left thigh. It’s so intense at night. My legs are so tight already and I’ve only lengthened less than 2 inches in total so far. How are you feeling now? Any nerve pain? Are you still on Hydrocodone or have already switched to OTC meds. I wish you the best and hope to hear from you and exchange tips with you so we can both get through this successfully.
Same here - I've been getting very poor sleep after the tibias surgery, though I reached 4-5 hours in the two night prior to the femurs surgery. In the hospital it's been better thanks to the super comfortable bed, but I lost count of how much I slept.
I've had a lot of extremely intense nerve pain, that only toradol could reduce (I didn't bring CBD to the hospital). Problem with toradol is that it burns when they inject it via IV, it's not good for bone growth, and they don't prescribe it after discharge. So I'm prepared to have more extreme nerve pain episodes once I get to the hotel.
Speaking of tips, I've put together my research on pain - types and solutions. I'll paste it below but because this forum doesn't support rich text pasting, images and links will be lost. You can find the full and up-to-date version at
https://overrideyourgenetics.com/pain
--- raw text paste follows, refer to the link above for the full version ---
My biggest worries while deciding to undergo leg lengthening were the cost, the downtime, and the pain. LL Forum members have described the pain in rather scary terms:
"Never felt level 10 physical pain in my life until this surgery. And that includes getting hit by a car." -- DIFM
I can vouch for that. During the first two weeks after the tibias surgery, I've had several episodes of pain of such intensity that I cried and shivered, and no prescription or alternative meds would help. The only way around the pain was through it - letting it pass, sometimes for half an hour of level 9 pain.
I'm now in the hospital, recovering from the femurs surgery. I have access to, in theory, the latest in pain management from the leading American clinic specialized in orthopedic surgery. Yet, I've had two episodes of atrocious pain while in the hospital, one after lengthening the tibias, and another a couple hours ago, when my right leg started to hurt in places that were not operated on - right under the toes and up to the top of the foot. Nerve pain of such intensity that, with tears in my eyes, I asked the nurse if I could hold her hand while the toradol IV made its way into my system. The nurse was out of ideas. There was nothing more they could do. During the first episode, I ended up taking morphine.
If you asked me at that point, "Is this the best you could do for your life with $175k and 6 months of time off?", the answer would be "Absolutely NOT!". But the human brain (or at least mine) has this (in)ability to remember extreme pain as a so-called "declarative memory", e.g. "I broke my leg when I was 10, and the pain was very intense". But we can't really experience and truly feel that pain again on demand.
So if you ask me now, as I'm writing this a couple hours after that excruciating pain episode, "Knowing what you know now, would you still choose to do leg lengthening?", my answer would be more moderate: "Maybe not, now that I know how bad pain can get, and that I have to spend 4 months with pain episodes like that, and sleep horribly every night".
And if you asked me if I'd do it in 3 months from now, when the distraction phase ended and the pain went away (save for PT), I might even say "Yes, I'd do it". Funny how the mind works.
The moral of the pain story
While deciding to undergo CLL, ask yourself if you want to do it in a moment of really bad pain. Write the answer down. If you do undergo CLL, remember than pain does pass, and it becomes a theoretical memory of the past.
Types of pain and how to cope with them
So far in my quadrilateral leg lengthening journey, I've encountered a few different types of pain.
Muscle/bone/tendon pain
These come from your bones being fractured, and from the soft tissue recovering and lengthening. They're relieved pretty well by opioids (narcotic) analgesics like Oxycodone, Dilaudid, or combinations of opioids and non-opioids (acetaminophen) like Norco or Percocet.
These medications are available by prescription only, and carry a set of side effects. Oxycodone for example has made me constipated and apathetic (and in combination with other types of pain it doesn't touch, borderline depressed). You can also build tolerance, and there is a small risk of addiction (see this study, which concludes that
"The clinical studies referred to above indicate that opiate addicts and pain patients are largely separate populations and that opiate addiction due to appropriate medical management of pain is rare."
Unfortunately, this risk has been blown out of proportion and misinterpreted, such that the Paley Institute is reluctant to prescribe too many opioids, and plain refused to prescribe me extended-release oxycodone (aka Oxycontin - which is what helped LL Forum member DIFM get decent sleep at night when he did LL in 2015).
Another problem with these opioids is that they take at least 30 minutes to kick in (and up to one hour), and only last for 3-5 hours. In the hospital, I was able to request a 4-hour schedule for Dilaudid, but beware that if you report a low pain level (e.g. 2) when the nurse comes to offer the pain killer 4 hours after the previous administration, they're obligated to delay it until your pain level increases. Thus it makes sense to pay close attention to your pain level, and call the nurse as soon as it starts going up. Remember, it takes at least 30 minutes for the medication to start working, and you don't want to spend those 30 minutes in pain level 6-7.
Once you're discharged from the hospital, you can administer the meds on your own schedule, but beware that,
* You'll have a limited supply (I had about 40 pills for 3 weeks),
* The pain reduction only lasts for about 4 hours, so at night you'll have to either wake yourself up to stay ahead of the pain, or wake up in pain
* Painkillers ruin appetite, which will slow your recovery due to reduced caloric intake. See the Diet page.
* Opioids don't work on nerve pain.
* Opioids stress your liver.
Opioid tips
Try to get off opioids as soon as possible, but not before two weeks post-surgery.
Different people respond differently to various opioids. Dilaudid seems to work better for me than oxycodone. Ask your care team to try different formulations and see which one cuts most pain for you.
It might be interesting to also alternate them, so as to not build tolerance to a particular pill. This is TBD but is similar to the recommendation to alternate kratom strains.
Avoid Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs
Ibuprofen has been found to interfere with bone formation. Use Tylenol instead. It won't do much (it only alleviates mild pain), but it won't mess with your bones.
Nerve pain
This pain is caused by nerves being stimulated in unfamiliar ways (e.g. after the peroneal nerve decompression that Paley performs preventively) and of course by lengthening. It feels like a burning sensation, and often in places that were not touched by the surgery. IAmReady described it as an electric burn in his tibias journal, and it felt somewhat similar to me, albeit fortunately less intense on an ongoing basis, probably thanks to a new medication that the Paley team put me on: Neurontin. I've been taking 600mg every 8 hours and still had several excruciating episodes of nerve pain, but who knows how much worse I would've been without it.
Do ask your doctor about it. The Paley team typically prescribes it to only 10% of CLL patients, but I made sure to emphasize that I had a pretty low pain tolerance. After two weeks, my evening dose was upped to 900mg after I complained of burning pain in one shin. I can't yet tell if this has improved things.
Skin hypersensitivity
This one was unexpected to me, but caused an enormous deal of distress while trying to sleep. Before surgery, my legs were shaved. As the hair on the shins grew post-op, anything that touched the shins, especially going against the grain, was extremely uncomfortable. Even soft satin pajama pants were annoying. My shins were burning, as if I had sunburned them. What helped:
* Wet towels (at room temperature, or warmer; cold compresses made the sensation worse)
* Wearing long, semi-loose socks (compression socks were too difficult to get onto swollen shins) that formed a "second skin"
* Cool smooth bed sheets. Satin would've been great probably, but the hotel just had regular cotton sheets.
The splints (ankle dorsiflexion boots)
For tibia lengthening patients, Dr. Paley wants patients to wear splints 22 hours per day in order to prevent "contracture" (TBD - ballerina foot?)
Dorsiflexion-boot-splints
The problem with these splints is that, despite being custom made based on molds of my legs, they are extremely uncomfortable to wear at night. The shell is made of hard plastic, and I feel it touches in all the wrong spots, given the goal is to keep the ankle at 90 degrees. Here's my ankle bruised by the boot:
Another LLer called these "torture devices". I'm not sure how anyone can honestly score 22 hours per day wearing them.
Solution: look into "night-time splints". Those are actually designed to be worn at night, and only cost around $50. I've ordered a pair of MEDSPEC PHANTOM DORSAL NIGHT SPLINT and I'll report on what it feels like to wear them, and what PTs think of them.
Removing IVs
If you're used to waxing your hair off, you can skip this section. But if you're not keen on the idea of ripping your hair off, read on.
For reasons I can't fathom, men aren't advised in the pre-surgery instructions to simply shave their hair where IV lines might come in. This means the back of the palm, and perhaps some forearm areas if you want an IV there. Note: don't ask for an IV to be placed in the antecubital fossa (inside of the elbow, where they typically draw blood from; inexperienced nurses might do that, but it's a bad idea. Anyway, the problem with IVs is that they need to be stabilized against the hand/arm, and some nurses use excessive amounts of tape that sticks to your hair (maybe being female, they don't really relate to men having hair on their paws) and hurts like hell to have removed.
I've found three solutions for this:
* Detachol - a medical grade product especially for removing medical tape. Unfortunately I didn't have time to order it, and * St. Mary's hospital hadn't heard of it.
* Baby oil - people swear by it. Again, not available at St. Mary's.
* Coconut oil - this worked. Minimal pain while removing two IVs, though it took about 10 minutes of gently rubbing the oil at the base of the tape while peeling it off.
Sleep
Related to pain is the problem of "hellish nights of poor sleep", as one LL Forum member put it. Lack of sleep screws you up in all sorts of ways, including with decreased pain tolerance and increased irritability.
Since painkillers only las for a few hours, you're unlikely to get decent sleep. LL Forum members and fellow patients I've met report very poor sleep throughout the distraction period. The opioids prescribed to patients have their own impact on sleep[1], but more importantly, they tend to cause addiction, so doctors prescribe less and less as time goes on - which means you'll be in pain more often.
"It sucked when they lowered my Oxy dosage as well. They're going to keep lowering it every 2 weeks. Savor your oxycodone. It's going to be more scarce as time goes on. Try to only take it when you can't bear the pain." - DIFM
So far (tibia and femurs surgeries done three weeks apart), I've been lucky to get 4 hours of sleep out of spending 12 hours in bed.
I'm afraid I don't have good solutions for this yet, but I hope that the night-time splints I've ordered will make it more comfortable to sleep with dorsiflexion boots. However, I've read that patients who only did femurs still had terrible sleep.
Kratom seemed to help, by putting me to sleep, but the effect only lasted for two hours or so, until shin skin hypersensitivity would wake me up.
Non-opioid pain reduction
Unless you want to risk jail and obtain your own opioids (and increase the risk of addiction), it's worth looking into alternatives. Several promising ones came to light during my research.
Cannabis
Marijuana has been caught up in the silly (and ineffective) "War on drugs" in the US, and as such, research into its medicinal benefits has been limited. However, there is high-quality international research (such as this study showing that CBD markedly enhances callus formation), and there's also a very large amount of anecdotal evidence for the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of cannabis - including my own experience.
John Robb, PA in the Paley team, recommended using CBD. It seems to help with nerve pain, though I still need to determine the dosage, reduction amount, and effect duration.
STAY TUNED I'll drop a lot more research in this section.
Kratom
Kratom is a tree that grows in South-East Asia. Certain strains appear to have pain killing effects. It's mostly legal in the US. I've purchased 23 different varieties and will report back.
Among the Paley team, Erica Boliak, PA, suggested kratom was OK to take, but it has a short half-life, so it won't help for more than a couple hours.
Agmatine
Agmatine is one fascinating substance, widely used in bodybuilding, with nootropic properties, and which was also found to potentiate the effect of many other drugs, including opioids. This means you need less oxycodone and oxycontin to keep pain away. It's also fully legal. It also was found to decrease tolerance to opioids. It does sound too good to be true, and to date, nobody on either forum appears to have used it (!).
I tried 1g a couple times with oxycodone, and it was unclear if it enhanced its effect. It did seem to make my mood more volatile though.
Collagen
While it doesn't have a direct influence on pain, collagen has been widely used in cosmetic surgery, tissue regeneration, bone grafts, and reconstructive surgery. It's also used as an oral supplement. Having more flexible tendons should mean less pain during PT, so I've ordered myself the most promising collagen supplement approved by ConsumerLab, containing the following ingredients:
* Boswellia serrata Extract (resin) - analgesic
* Turmeric Root 4:1 Extract (curcumin) - anti-inflammatory
* Undenatured Type II Collagen
* White Willow Bark - analgesic
Before the femurs surgery, my Range of Motion was evaluated as "excellent" - 14 (104) degrees for the ankle dorsiflexion, and 140 degrees for knee bends. Obviously, I can't attribute this to 2 weeks of collage supplementation, but I've never been a particularly flexible person.
------raw paste above, refer to https://overrideyourgenetics.com/pain for the full version ------
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Hold on buddy! I know its hard but once you finished the extra height feels absolutely awesome. Being in the crowd and being taller than women is just good , it's in our DNA.
I have say though that the price is freaking huge. $175K is ridiculous. I guess Paley's demand is soaring.
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If you asked me at that point, "Is this the best you could do for your life with $175k and 6 months of time off?", the answer would be "Absolutely NOT!". But the human brain (or at least mine) has this (in)ability to remember extreme pain as a so-called "declarative memory", e.g. "I broke my leg when I was 10, and the pain was very intense". But we can't really experience and truly feel that pain again on demand.
So if you ask me now, as I'm writing this a couple hours after that excruciating pain episode, "Knowing what you know now, would you still choose to do leg lengthening?", my answer would be more moderate: "Maybe not, now that I know how bad pain can get, and that I have to spend 4 months with pain episodes like that, and sleep horribly every night".
Remember what you are doing: you are overriding your genetics with the earliest method, but best technology, our scientific knowledge currently allows. No pain, no gain. The change is forever, and you are in hands of the best.
You are changing every inch of your perception, and those of the ones around you - quite literally at that. That will come at huge costs. The fact you're there battling your own nature already speaks volumes. Don't risk your legs more than you need to, but push through!
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(https://overrideyourgenetics.com/content/images/2018/04/Tibias-muscle-loss.jpg)
Nothing beats not having to wear those bulky fixators on your legs. Sleeping and showering would be a nightmare with those things.
How are you holding up? Where are you at in your lengthening?
No matter what hang in there, if you can safely get 5cm on the tibias and 6.5cm on the femurs go for it. Dr. Paley would never let you harm yourself for extra length. Even if it feels like it's not worth it now, it will be when it's all over. Trust me, you won't regret it for a second.
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(https://overrideyourgenetics.com/content/images/2018/04/Dorsiflexion-boot-splints.jpg)
After you finish lengthening and get to take these braces off, your legs will feel like a million bucks. You'll sleep like a baby. I know life sucks now, but it's all worth it in the end my friend.
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Hey man, did Paley specifically tell you that you need to put only 5cm in femurs in order to be super safe? Or is it just the safe number for those who do both segments? Because Paley allows 8cm in general on femurs.
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Hey man, did Paley specifically tell you that you need to put only 5cm in femurs in order to be super safe? Or is it just the safe number for those who do both segments? Because Paley allows 8cm in general on femurs.
Generally, the limits are lower if you do them simultaneously. (See here (https://paleyinstitute.org/centers-of-excellence/stature-lengthening/costs-financial-considerations/))
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Wish you a speedy recovery! I learned so much already by you sharing your thoughts with me. Awesome, brother. Keep going strong.
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Hey, glad things are going well for you, one thing I’ve not seen you mention in your posts. What was your flexibility like before the op?
I’ve been trying to work on mine for a long period but I’m really struggling to improve it. What’s dr paleys view on this, did he discuss it with you?
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Hey, glad things are going well for you, one thing I’ve not seen you mention in your posts. What was your flexibility like before the op?
I’ve been trying to work on mine for a long period but I’m really struggling to improve it. What’s dr paleys view on this, did he discuss it with you?
I'm curious to hear his answer on this, but I thought I'd provide my own in case you're curious. (I'm also a patient of Paley's, but femurs only.)
I was not very flexible coming in, and due to my tightness, I had to slow down my rate of lengthening. Paley will tell you he doesn't think it makes a difference, but the physical therapists who work there will tell you that people who are more flexible have an easier time, and I do believe that. My advice to anyone considering this is to work on your flexibility well in advance.
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Thank you very much for your reply, could you touch your toes? I spend time stretching and feel an improvement, then if I stop for a while I get tougher than ever, I think the fact I spend 9 hours a day driving makes my back stiff which hinders my flexibility!
I still can not touch my toes, what does paley think about this? How much have you lengthened? I’m looking at 6cm femurs max only too.
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I was not very flexible coming in, and due to my tightness, I had to slow down my rate of lengthening. Paley will tell you he doesn't think it makes a difference, but the physical therapists who work there will tell you that people who are more flexible have an easier time, and I do believe that. My advice to anyone considering this is to work on your flexibility well in advance.
I'm not a doctor, so this is just a random opinion on the internet. But it does seem to make sense to me.
In the case of gymnasts and dancers, their genetics lent themselves to a predisposition towards those careers. Those same genetics might allow them to have an easier time compared to others doing LL, specially if the lengthened amount is low.
When I think about it, considering you don't get any of the big scares of CLL (nonunion, mal-union, bone infection, DVT/PE/FES, refractures, nail breakage), then all that is left is for your bones to grow back, heal, and consolidate well. All that will happen at some point if you didn't have complications. However, as the bones grow back, they unnaturally stretch your soft tissues. Wouldn't it make sense that people who already have an easier time stretching their tissues on their own have an easier time and recovery with CLL, granted they limited themselves to safer, lower lengthening amounts? A lot is related to stretching.
OYG: I'm glad your journey is almost over. I'm also sorry that you had to go through so much pain for it.
EDIT: Wording.
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Thank you very much for your reply, could you touch your toes? I spend time stretching and feel an improvement, then if I stop for a while I get tougher than ever, I think the fact I spend 9 hours a day driving makes my back stiff which hinders my flexibility!
I still can not touch my toes, what does paley think about this? How much have you lengthened? I’m looking at 6cm femurs max only too.
I could not touch my toes without bending my legs a little bit. I'm not sure this is an important metric, though.
Usually most people start having tightness around 5cm (in my case, closer to 4cm) and they have to slow down the rate of growth. The number of PT sessions included only covers 8cm at 1mm/day, so any tightness may result you in having to buy extra PT if you don't reach your goal by then - and it's not cheap.
6cm I would guess most people can do in that time period, but for anything more, I would advise a lot of stretching beforehand.
Btw, OYG I wasn't able to catch you the other day at PT, I sent you some messages when you get a chance.
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are you going for full 10 cm?
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OK, time to hijack back my thread :-P
I've been debating posting my actual diary given that STRYDE is available now and is indeed a complete game changer. After reading some posts from others trying to decide between PRECICE and STRYDE, I've decided to not post my diary, because I can't in good conscience advise anyone to use the PRECICE 2.2, when STRYDE is only <10% more expensive, but you save 4+ months of not being a likely depressed cripple in a wheelchair (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=6375.msg90095#msg90095). So what I've been through will mostly not apply to STRYDE patients.
For example, I had very little appetite for the first two months, and I lost 20lbs, mostly muscle, including in the upper body (despite using the wheelchair and/or walker every day). I lost 2cms in my bicep circumference. The STRYDE patient (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4736.msg86275#msg86275) though, started regaining muscle by the end of week 2, and no longer has an appetite problem.
Just a couple highlights that still apply to STRYDE:
I did quadrilateral, which I don't regret because I wouldn't expose myself to this PRECICE ordeal twice, and wanted to keep the healthy 0.8 tibia:femur ratio (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26398436). The lengthening amounts are indeed smaller, BUT if you are unusually flexible (as one patient I met is) or disciplined, you can lengthen up to 5+8cm. That does require serious discipline and a massive amount of PT - the girl in question has always been into yoga and very flexible (supporting myloginacct's point that if you're genetically flexible, you might naturally end up doing yoga or the like, and the underlying factor is your genetics), has been doing two PT sessions per day at the Institute, plus 3 sessions at home (at least half hour each) plus pool. Apparently she wasn't affected by the apathy side-effect (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5545).
The surgery experiences were VERY different. The first surgery (tibias) and hospital recovery were pretty great. I chose a "caudal block" as the anesthesia method, and they used ketamine (a drug that makes you happy and can cure depression (https://www.nature.com/news/rave-drug-holds-promise-for-treating-depression-fast-1.16664), but of course, is highly regulated), which was nice. During the recovery in the hospital bed I exaggerated my pain a little in order to get painkillers before the pain actually struck, which worked great. Toradol was very effective against nerve pain, and the other IV drug (I forgot) against muscle/bone pain.
The second surgery (femurs) and recovery however were way worse. Even though I asked for the same type of anesthesia, I got something else - I remember being in the OR and looking at the lights while they bent me over and put an epidural in. You do NOT want to remember being in the OR. When I woke up I felt miserable and threw up several times. I was in the hospital for 4 days or so, during which I reached pain level 9 or 10 - so bad I asked a nurse to hold her hand while I was crying in pain because morphine didn't help. A drug called dilaudid did help.
The first two weeks after each surgery were pretty terrible. Pain level 7-8 at least once a day, which medication helped more or less with. (Hint: THC helps (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/pain#cannabis), and it's not actually dangerous for your bones). By the end of week 3 after tibias, I was doing pretty well, but then the femurs surgery reset everything.
Sleep was horrible until I thought of buying a latex foam mattress (about 3 weeks after femurs), which has been a game changer - it doubled the amount of sleep I got from 3 hours (at most) to 5-6 hours.
Still, I wasn't able to do any productive work more complicated than paying bills - which should not be a problem with STRYDE because you'll be weight-bearing, which has neurological benefits (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5545).
After you finish lengthening and get to take these braces off, your legs will feel like a million bucks. You'll sleep like a baby.
I stopped being able to tolerate the braces at night after the femurs surgery, so I gave up on wearing them. Still, couldn't sleep like a baby as a result (see above). Of course, I don't advise doing this - do wear the braces. I didn't, and combined with my natural lack of flexibility, I had to stop lengthening the tibias at 3.5cm (estimated; 3.75cm measured on the x-rays). My initial dorsiflexion was 15 degrees, and I stopped when PTs said I should - at 8 degrees. It's slowly coming back after lots of standing in the walker on an incline board - 10 degrees now).
I also have tight hamstrings and have developed a really annoying (and limiting) nerve pain on the inside of the left leg, from the calf to the knee up to the groin. It burned whenever I tried to do a knee extension. That limited the amount of PT I could do on my own, and made PT sessions at the Institute extremely painful. At that point (~5 weeks after the femurs surgery, at about 3cm of length), I decided that being able to walk again was more important than 1 extra cm (which is what PTs said I could reasonably tolerate) and wound down the lengthening. I'm at 3.75cm in the femurs as well, but ended up with a discrepancy of 7mm - the left leg is shorter.
Here's a piece of advice: address the discrepancy AS YOU GO, not at the end of the lengthening, no matter what the doctors tell you. Calculate how much you need to extra lengthen the shorter segment, and throw in one extra turn per day for a number of days. I didn't do that and got screwed in two ways when we measured the discrepancy last week: the tibias have started consolidating, so there's nothing I can do about the 4mm shorter tibia; and now I'd have to overlengthen the left femur to make up for that - which not only takes 2-3 extra weeks (because I'm supposed to do 2 turns max per day now, vs. 4 in the beginning), but means I'll have a longer left femur and a longer right tibia. And 2-3 extra weeks before I can start consolidating the shorter leg. :-[
Another piece of advice: watch your x-rays like a hawk. Ask to get access to them, online or on a CD - whatever. Do your own measurements. Make sure both nails lengthen at the same rate. Look for signs of fractures. Etc. At the Paley Institute in particular, this is easiest if you remain in the room after the consult with the doctor, and go to the computer that shows your x-ray. Take the mouse, right click, and choose the "Distance" menu item. Draw lines on both bones from the top to the bottom of the epyphyses (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Structure_of_a_Long_Bone.png). Keep in mind that there's a magnification factor. Ask about it. At Paley, it's 4%, so in reality, things are 4% smaller - e.g. the 39mm of lengthening in the right nail is actually 0.96 *39 = ~37.44mm.
(https://i.imgur.com/RWYEGLc.png) (https://imgur.com/a/efYcp3W)
PT. It's painful. I can't deny that if I did more PT at home, I would've probably been able to lengthen more. The problem is that you need to overcome pain you're inflicting on yourself and can stop at any time. When a therapist inflicts pain on you, you grin and bear it. When you inflict it, you can stop at at time, or reduce the pain. This makes DIY PT sessions necessarily less effective. Plan on that. Get someone else to inflict the pain. Take pain meds (nothing really works on me (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5260.msg90078#msg90078) for some reason). Hopefully PT will be a lot easier with STRYDE, since you can walk, and walking is the best PT (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=8912.0).
Anyway, at 75% of my original 10cm goal, I'm satisfied. I'm no longer in pain when stationary; only when stretching or lying on my left side (due to the hip screws; that might not go away until I take them out a year from now. #FML)
I'll be flying back at the end of next week, starting the next chapter in the long slow journey of being able to walk again.
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Thanks for your update! I think you made the right decision.
How is that discrepency possible with Precise. I thought that lengthening machine ensures the exact lengthening rate.
Could you please give me an example what the "healthy 0.8 tibi:femur ratio" means if for exampe someone's tibia is 35cm and his femur about 39cm.
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How is that discrepency possible with Precise. I thought that lengthening machine ensures the exact lengthening rate.
I started out with a shorter left leg. This was seen in the first x-rays, when I had the first consultation to Dr. Paley, discussing LL options.
Could you please give me an example what the "healthy 0.8 tibi:femur ratio" means if for exampe someone's tibia is 35cm and his femur about 39cm.
Before lengthening, my tibias were ~34.5cm and the femurs were ~43.5cm. If you divide the first number by the second, you get an original ratio of ~0.79.
After lengthening each segment by about 37mm, I have a tibia:femur ratio of ~38:~47, which is 0.8.
If you're 35:39 pre-CLL, that's a 0.89 tibia:femur ratio, so you should lengthen the femurs quite a bit more than the tibias. For example, +3cm in the tibias and +6 in the femurs would bring you to 38:45, which is 0.84. Or you could do only 5cm in the femurs and be at 0.795.
In any case, read that study and see if it's more important to you to have the best ratio, or to gain more height (e.g. if you do 6 or 7cm in the femurs).
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Did you plan to lengthen your left leg more than the right on? My left leg is also half a centimeter shorter and it actually causes pain in my right hip and foot (I wear a lift for that now)
Thanks for the explanation:) My tibias seem to be too long ???
My minimum goal is 10cm. My legs will be measured soon by a doctor. The 35/39cm are not the exact numbers. I will ask him about the 0.8 ratio and what he recommends for lengthening.
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you should do at least 6 cm on femurs if you cant push tibias any more. 170k and not being 5'9 would be a total failure and regret in the future
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you should do at least 6 cm on femurs if you cant push tibias any more. 170k and not being 5'9 would be a total failure and regret in the future
I'm pretty sure whatever he ends up doing, there's no way someone who went through 10/10 pain levels, and 3 hours of sleep almost everyday, just to overcome what nature and his environment gave him, can, or will, think of himself or his result as any sort of a failure - specially because of a 3cm difference. :)
OYG and his doctors will know what is best for himself. From what he wrote too, it seems he decided and is about done with lengthening.
In the eventuality that much later down the road your conjecture could turn to a reality, rebreaking bones is a technical possibility - but I doubt it'll come to that.
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Thanks for the support, myloginacc.
OYG and his doctors will know what is best for himself. From what he wrote too, it seems he decided and is about done with lengthening.
I forgot to mention another issue: I've been having reduced sensitivity in the left lower leg for about two weeks now. Motor control is fine, but the skin from the ankle to the knee has only about half the sensation I used to have. I stopped lengthening the tibias a month ago, and I've been distracting the left femur at only 0.5mm/day, so this is another worrying fact and reason I decided to stop.
In the eventuality that much later down the road your conjecture could turn to a reality, rebreaking bones is a technical possibility - but I doubt it'll come to that.
Rebreaking is an option indeed. I should be able to gain 2 more inches. But I definitely won't be subjecting myself to the PRECISE downtime again.
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Where would you rank your pain on a 1-10 scale also do you plan on doing more surgeries ie femurs and hopefully you get full feeling back pretty soon
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Where would you rank your pain on a 1-10 scale also do you plan on doing more surgeries ie femurs and hopefully you get full feeling back pretty soon
Thanks for the well wishes and I don't mean to sound mean, but you may get more out of life with much less of an investment by improving your reading comprehension and English writing skills. Anyway, I'll try to make sense of your run-on sentence and give an update on my journey so far.
Friday, June 8, 2018 - 4 weeks since stopping lengthening the tibias, 2 weeks since stopping the right femur
Today concludes the lengthening phase of my process, for a total of 7.5cm (almost 3"). Here are the x-rays on the last day of lengthening:
(https://i.imgur.com/kAKOxht.png)
For the last two weeks, I've only been lengthening the left femur at 0.5mm/day, in order to make up for the leg length discrepancy. As I noted in a previous post, this was due to a strategic mistake - not correcting this discrepancy at the beginning of the lengthening process. Please learn from my experience and convince your doctor that you want to correct any discrepancies at the beginning of the lengthening, when you're much more flexible, and one extra turn a day won't make much of a difference.
Surprisingly, when I asked Dr. Paley about the timeline to walking with crutches and consolidation, he cleared me for walking with crutches and sent me to PT to learn the 4-point crutch gait (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vgFzExYfw). He also upped my weight bearing from 100lbs (2x50 in the tibias) to 120lbs with the walker, and said I could stand straight unassisted without a time limit, as long as the heels, knees and hips were stacked. Was anyone else using PRECICE cleared to walk with crutches the day of their last turn? I had stopped tibias 4 weeks ago, and the right femur 2 weeks ago, but I've still been lengthening the left femur, and indeed, it doesn't show any consolidation in the x-rays:
(https://i.imgur.com/bvyspjJ.png)
So that's what two weeks of consolidation in one femur looks like.
Anyway, trying to walk with crutches after not walking for three months, was really scary. Even standing on my own two feet was a balance challenge. I'll stick with the walker for a while.
Today I also flew back home. The flying process was pretty streamlined: you show up at the airline's "special services / wheelchair requests" counter and they'll take care of you. As in, someone will ask for your ID, give you the boarding pass, then someone else will wheel you into security, take any carry-ons you might have, hand you over to TSA for a pat down, then get your carry-ons back and wheel you to the gate. From there, a gate attendant will wheel you to the plane, help you transfer into a special narrow wheelchair, then transfer you to your seat. Tip: get the wheelchair cushion with you! The plane seat was surprisingly stiff - because I had lost so much of my glutes.
In theory, as a wheelchair passenger you can get upgraded for free to first class in order to be closer to the bathrooms, but that didn't happen in my case (JetBlue), likely due to a certain rude gate attendant (who will be mentioned in a complaint letter to JetBlue). Bathroom proximity was irrelevant in my case, since I couldn't fit the walker in the aisle anyway, so I used the restroom just before boarding, and stopped drinking an hour earlier. I did sip some water during the flight, but not much, so that I could last 6-7 hours without needing the restroom.
During the next few weeks I'll be focusing on improving my ankle dorsiflexion and regaining my balance while standing straight. I also plan to buy a stationary bike, since I suspect that cycling will improve knee flexibility quite a lot, and because I need the cardio exercise.
Over the past several weeks, I haven't been in pain at all, except when stretching. I'll be tapering off Gabapentin/Neurontin over the next 10 days, and will be taking two monthly x-rays to send to Dr. Paley. He said that I could be walking unassisted within the next 4-6 weeks.
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Today concludes the lengthening phase of my process,
First off, congratulations!
He said that I could be walking unassisted within the next 4-6 weeks.
Which would be a total of 8-10 weeks after stopping your tibias, 6-8 weeks for the right femur, and 4-6 for the left femur, correct?
I've noticed that Dr. Paley seemed more optimistic about consolidation times for me than Dr. Robbins or the PTs. We'll see, I guess!
Tip: get the wheelchair cushion with you! The plane seat was surprisingly stiff - because I had lost so much of my glutes.
I have found many seats to be uncomfortable post-surgery. I don't know if I'm alone in that.
and said I could stand straight unassisted without a time limit
This is the one of the reasons I'm glad I only did femurs, at least as far as Precise 2.2 goes - I was able to stand unassisted pretty much from the get-go. Many things would be far tougher if I had not been able to.
For the last two weeks, I've only been lengthening the left femur at 0.5mm/day, in order to make up for the leg length discrepancy. As I noted in a previous post, this was due to a strategic mistake - not correcting this discrepancy at the beginning of the lengthening process. Please learn from my experience and convince your doctor that you want to correct any discrepancies at the beginning of the lengthening, when you're much more flexible, and one extra turn a day won't make much of a difference.
I asked about this, and they told me to wait until the end. I didn't push too hard, though.
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Congratulations and thanks for sharing, OYG. Just goes to show that even careful planning and preparation can lead to unexpected obstacles.
Your diary is in no way obsolete because of STRYDE. A lot of the process is still relevant, and your opinion of being able to observe both technologies simultaneously carries much more weight than speculation.
Onward and upward!
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So you paid around $150K for 7 cm even though you could do 7 cm on femurs alone. Yeah sure proportions will be better but not many would care if there is so much more money involved that could be spend wayyyy better.
LL people are a weird bunch.
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So you paid around $150K for 7 cm even though you could do 7 cm on femurs alone. Yeah sure proportions will be better but not many would care if there is so much more money involved that could be spend wayyyy better.
LL people are a weird bunch.
...and some of them are committing basic reasoning errors.
1. I didn't decide upfront "Oh, I'll pay double the cost for femurs and get the same length just for the sake of proportions". When I chose quadrilateral and made the payment, my plan was to do 10cm, with the possibility of rebreaking in a year for 16cm. I stopped at 7.5cm several months later, and I still have the possibility of rebreaking.
2. "not many would care if there is so much more money involved that could be spend wayyyy better" - this isn't about how many would care. This decision was mine. I care. Maybe for me, that extra money was best spent preserving proportions, reducing the risk of osteoarthritis (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26398436), and minimizing the recovery time, which we know increases more than arithmetically for every cm past the 5th in the femurs. Keep in mind that unlike Purushrottam, I'm in my late 30s.
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If you're gonna re-break then yes, you will gave value for you money, otherwise it is just hard to justify spending so much .In the end it's your money and hopefully you're happy.
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I'm glad you continued updating the diary. Yours is much more detailed and useful than mine. For example, I totally forgot to mention the small but critical detail: The walker doesn't fit on an airplane aisle. As a result, getting on board your flight was a bit of a logistical hurdle... especially because I was new to crutches at the time. Also, the plane ride was rather uncomfortable.
Anyways, good luck on your journey!
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Friday, June 15 update. 5 weeks since stopping lengthening the tibias, 3 weeks since stopping the right femur, 1 since stopping the left
I've been home for a week, without much progress even though I've been using the walker a lot more. Also, my legs got swollen during the flight (normal for everyone), but the left leg wouldn't go back to normal:
(https://i.imgur.com/HLp5PU9.png)
Dr. Paley said to use elevation and compression socks. That didn't help.
But this morning I woke up to feel my left leg significantly more flexible than last night (by about 10%). The swelling is almost gone, literally overnight. It's easier to stretch the left knee (which has been extra stiff). Moral of the story: don't despair, even if there's no visible progress for a whole week after you stop lengthening.
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Tuesday, July 10 update. 8.5 weeks since stopping lengthening the tibias, 6.5 weeks since stopping the right femur, 4.5 since stopping the left
It's been 3.5 weeks since my last update, and a lot of progress:
A pain I've had for 2-3 weeks under the right knee when walking has gone away. That seems to be how LL pains come and go.
The pain from the screws in the left hip is less, though I still can't fall asleep on my left side (on my right, I can). Doctors at the Institute said this should disappear within one year, but it feels it will be shorter than that.
Had x-rays taken a week ago and I was worried by some strange-looking aspects. Here are two of the views in that x-ray set (more at https://imgur.com/a/iph0938):
(https://i.imgur.com/F0syUCF.jpg)
^^ The top wall of the femur in that side image looks VERY thin. The comparable image of the left femur (https://imgur.com/NZhyUju) shows a much thicker bone wall.
(https://i.imgur.com/Peb3v1L.jpg)
^^ The zigzag in the right fibula looks pretty weird.
Dr. Paley said I was ready to "walk full weight bearing" with crutches, and to start slowly and ditch them when I can carry them. About the two anomalies above, he said the zigzag is no concern, but hasn't replied to my question about the thin bone wall. I looked at past x-rays and it's always been like that; however, other people's femurs don't show this thin wall (here are fallen774's (https://imgur.com/a/XZNLFtk)). Not sure what to make of this.
Anyway, with the above in mind I wanted to be cautious so instead of getting crutches, I started walking (not hopping) with the walker around the house. A few days later I managed to walk about 50 meters to the gym in my building, then back. It wasn't that hard.
Strength is coming back fast, and pains are diminishing (I've only felt pain when moving the legs; very little random pains when not doing anything).
Yesterday I went back to work, in the wheelchair. About 30% of my coworkers asked what happened, and those were the least Americanized ones. The rest didn't bat an eye. "Welcome back, do you need any help?", but no intrusive questions about "what happened". To those who did ask what happened, I told I had a leg length discrepancy (true) that gave me back pain when standing (I did have that pain, though I'm not sure due to what), and while correcting the discrepancy, I got BOTH legs lengthened, so I'm a couple inches taller now. That's how far it went so far with coworkers being curious. I feel most professionals in the Bay Area make an effort to not ask their coworkers personal health questions. I haven't been out to social gatherings yet, where being outside of a work relationship, I can talk to people about LL (and they care enough to be genuinely curious).
Today I felt comfortable moving from the walker to canes. I'm skipping the crutches step because regular (underarm) crutches seem obnoxious, and the canes (https://amzn.to/2NDQS1Y) provided enough support for balance and for the moderate pain I feel in the left leg when stepping. Not sure what forearm crutches would provide in addition, and I don't want to use too much support; I'd rather force my body to get back to walking unaided ASAP.
https://youtu.be/xntirXoPvOk
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Can you tell me your wingspan? Your ratio looks good.
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Thanks for the update, great photos. I hope Dr. Paley gets back to you soon about that femur wall.
Glad to hear that your strength is returning fast, good luck on walking!
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My wingspan is only 5'2". When I was 5'5", I already looked like a T-rex sometimes, and always had to shorten the sleeves of any shirts I'd buy. For this reason, I don't plan to do a rebreak and lengthen any more.
Not sure how you could tell the ratio, since I didn't spread my arms in that video :)
Anyway, my wingspan is very short (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=8783.msg90085#msg90085).
UPDATE as of end of July
I've been getting back to a normal life, and haven't visited the forum much. Below is a video of me walking without crutches. I can now walk longer without crutches, though there's pain level 2-3 with each step. My hips sway, especially if I try to lessen the pain. If I focus on the steps and push through the pain, I can walk pretty straight. I can also carry 45lbs plates at the gym, and have accidentally rowed ~175lbs. Not a good idea.
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=tXC_eSGFeHw
Some thoughts in retrospect after this leg lengthening experience:
1. I haven't yet seen improvements in my life to justify the ~$220k total price tag for this surgery. I went from 5'5" to 5'8" so I'm still shorter than 70% of males. While I am taller than 75% of women, this isn't very useful as I already have a girlfriend. Nobody at work noticed that I was taller - not surprising, given we work at desks all the time. My friends were like "wow" the first day I came back home, but didn't care about it later (as they should). I haven't been to bars/clubs (not my scene) or social events yet, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
At work, some people (esp. women) are shorter than me. This makes *me* feel self-conscious so I prefer to sit, in order to not make them look up.
2. If I learned one "thing" from this experience, is to have a lot more patience. I'm doing things now that I might have been too impatient for earlier, or I'm at peace with making slow progress over a longer period of time. I also know that if I need to have some other surgery, I'll make it through.
3. Walking is the best PT. Walk as soon as possible. For me, it was far more effective for strength and flexibility than having PT done to me while I was in a wheelchair. Of course, the legs healing coincided with going home after finishing lengthening, but the takeaway is - don't pay for *extra* PT (after you stop lengthening) unless you have money to throw around. Also, pool PT is weak. Stay somewhere that has a good, accessible gym instead. An Airbnb instead of the hotels that have pools and free shuttles going to PT, but don't have good gyms. You should exercise your upper body to prevent muscle loss.
4. I switched directly from walker to using one cane. No crutches. This was a very good decision. Tried to use crutches the day I stopped lengthening and it was scary and they felt awkward and precarious. Resorted to walking with the walker, mimicking normal walking as much as I could, instead of hopping. During that time, strength and flexibility (calves, dorsiflexion) were improving from one day to the next. I recommend the https://www.hurrycane.com - it folds, it can stand on its own, has a very stable base, and doesn't slip. Crutches just felt silly, hard to maneuver (esp.two of them when you need to open doors), and inelegant compared to the cane. The underarm style also risks causing nerve damage. If you MUST use crutches for some reason, use forearm ones.
5. Ever since I got back to California from West Palm Beach, my legs have been swollen all the time.
I'll get the last set of X-rays next week and ask Dr. Paley about that.
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Looking great man! Are you sure you measured your winspan correctly at 5'2 as your proportions look alot better than a big difference of 6" should be.
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Looking great man! Are you sure you measured your winspan correctly at 5'2 as your proportions look alot better than a big difference of 6" should be.
his proportions look great because he didn't just lengthen 7 cm femurs or 7 cm tibias.
he took proportions into account and lengthened both a very small amount each. So nothing will look off about him.
loving the diary @OverrideYourGenetics.
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Thanks for the kind words, Mirin.
I've noticed in your signature that you're already 179cm tall and want to gain 3-5cm. This is something I personally can't comprehend (being 5'10" is a dream), and you're already taller than 70% of men. I'm curious about your motives for getting a relatively small increase (3-5 cm). Is it the large wingspan?
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Your pain levels are the most interesting and alarming part of this. I expected the pain would be significant, as you are having your legs fractured as part of the process, but I thought nerve pain was rare? Also, I've heard descriptions of the pain from this surgery as being anywhere from a 2 to 6 out of 10, but your descriptions of it as 9-10/10 bring a whole new perspective. Very informative.
Did the Stryde patient appear to be in similar levels of discomfort/pain? One of my major concerns is the use of opioid painkillers. I've been prescribed them before for other pain but never used them and just toughed it out. Now I wish I remember what I was prescribed to get an idea of what level of pain my doctor thought I was in, because for me it was a 3-4/10 but he must have thought it was much worse.
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Some thoughts in retrospect after this leg lengthening experience:
1. I haven't yet seen improvements in my life to justify the ~$220k total price tag for this surgery.
$220k WTF???!! You'd have to be a multi-millionaire to justify spending that much on LL, so I hope you are? And even then, it's a ridiculous amount, particularly in your case, reading your post - sorry to say.
About the crutches, I would beg to differ. I used the underarm ones, you can mimic walking better with those, plus they keep you more upright with better posture. Make sure you adjust the length so that they fit snugly under your underarms when standing up straight.
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Instead of top 5 doctos in your signature, You should put top 5 delusional and lunatic users including yourself. "Cosmetic LL for 3,5 cm" -> Instead of looking for numbers, please take a ruler and measure 3,5 cm to see for what You want to spend so much money and risk for possible complications. Unbelievable its so hard to see difference between trolls and lunatics on this forum nowadays.
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My wingspan is only 5'2". When I was 5'5", I already looked like a T-rex sometimes, and always had to shorten the sleeves of any shirts I'd buy. For this reason, I don't plan to do a rebreak and lengthen any more.
Not sure how you could tell the ratio, since I didn't spread my arms in that video :)
Anyway, my wingspan is very short (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=8783.msg90085#msg90085).
UPDATE as of end of July
I've been getting back to a normal life, and haven't visited the forum much. Below is a video of me walking without crutches. I can now walk longer without crutches, though there's pain level 2-3 with each step. My hips sway, especially if I try to lessen the pain. If I focus on the steps and push through the pain, I can walk pretty straight. I can also carry 45lbs plates at the gym, and have accidentally rowed ~175lbs. Not a good idea.
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=tXC_eSGFeHw
Some thoughts in retrospect after this leg lengthening experience:
1. I haven't yet seen improvements in my life to justify the ~$220k total price tag for this surgery. I went from 5'5" to 5'8" so I'm still shorter than 70% of males. While I am taller than 75% of women, this isn't very useful as I already have a girlfriend. Nobody at work noticed that I was taller - not surprising, given we work at desks all the time. My friends were like "wow" the first day I came back home, but didn't care about it later (as they should). I haven't been to bars/clubs (not my scene) or social events yet, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
At work, some people (esp. women) are shorter than me. This makes *me* feel self-conscious so I prefer to sit, in order to not make them look up.
2. If I learned one "thing" from this experience, is to have a lot more patience. I'm doing things now that I might have been too impatient for earlier, or I'm at peace with making slow progress over a longer period of time. I also know that if I need to have some other surgery, I'll make it through.
3. Walking is the best PT. Walk as soon as possible. For me, it was far more effective for strength and flexibility than having PT done to me while I was in a wheelchair. Of course, the legs healing coincided with going home after finishing lengthening, but the takeaway is - don't pay for *extra* PT (after you stop lengthening) unless you have money to throw around. Also, pool PT is weak. Stay somewhere that has a good, accessible gym instead. An Airbnb instead of the hotels that have pools and free shuttles going to PT, but don't have good gyms. You should exercise your upper body to prevent muscle loss.
4. I switched directly from walker to using one cane. No crutches. This was a very good decision. Tried to use crutches the day I stopped lengthening and it was scary and they felt awkward and precarious. Resorted to walking with the walker, mimicking normal walking as much as I could, instead of hopping. During that time, strength and flexibility (calves, dorsiflexion) were improving from one day to the next. I recommend the https://www.hurrycane.com - it folds, it can stand on its own, has a very stable base, and doesn't slip. Crutches just felt silly, hard to maneuver (esp.two of them when you need to open doors), and inelegant compared to the cane. The underarm style also risks causing nerve damage. If you MUST use crutches for some reason, use forearm ones.
5. Ever since I got back to California from West Palm Beach, my legs have been swollen all the time.
I'll get the last set of X-rays next week and ask Dr. Paley about that.
@Overrideyourgenetics
Thank you for your honesty
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Your pain levels are the most interesting and alarming part of this. I expected the pain would be significant, as you are having your legs fractured as part of the process, but I thought nerve pain was rare? Also, I've heard descriptions of the pain from this surgery as being anywhere from a 2 to 6 out of 10, but your descriptions of it as 9-10/10 bring a whole new perspective. Very informative.
Not quite sure whose pain levels you were referring to. I had pain 9/10 ONCE, for about an hour during the hospital stay after the femurs surgery. Otherwise the pain was 6-8 intermittently. I've logged it using this app called "PainScale", until about 3 weeks after the femurs surgery, at which point it became uninteresting to log because the pain was too low or too random to do anything about.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2XuFEvHBYxcSx9Zd18dNe4T6u3rWVf3N8q6NTXTdNG_5W-f6Fgd6yARpYyBFYRtlvVUZUVkSwGw3GIw8YfWRkFQ4Di2aNzHGB8MoHL5JT7LYpppPc_Fn9vP59EYleqrmlyUycxjEHi44XmUEXDvvASRm3SHuepVewX3fftMIPkl7GgOD3sZyRYPJeA19eun9jURX1by18pKawo2suyXqlvGLzTE4kiCE9o7UHjQRu1fU0rcEp0NReyegpC3xHiha857bdmHj2x1XAeLg0beAq1FW9mDojJpMPizD6UBVo6u6KTtGK7dSnjWttn274GWsssrEufCwl6VogByffIlca-GqtCjA-QiKhK5nVt5UuVURn1wYn7OMhUgeDBdVn8cGjXBrdtWMGcChjTy621aC8CgqdP5Z_0PwRCmlaO-iM_XPzukg1ols8btUIvjiur0swmXE-_7rHkL_qbiQ9muDclqmWrSSEh5gG5G_xaWTQNE6jN8CIgZq0KcVBPYcw--esIMp1--ATrpYSu09g3RslDZHlriUtU7VuTrekTQiq0PUGSEbbm3MAP4rsvx9sQZD9SBkQIHTVoobTlvq_ikWo1XjH76nqHx_-CRuQAl9uvrPFXlWrYqanW7B0ztdqsDbn2HQ5Q_izomDB8qZHJ7q61LfCForBRa6aw=w503-h894-no)
Did the Stryde patient appear to be in similar levels of discomfort/pain?
No. He was doing much better. He also only had the femurs done.
People have asked me which segment was more painful. They were both painful enough during the first three weeks that the difference was insignificant. The femurs were worse long-term because they came with hip pain that prevented sleeping on the side. Also, when I get up from a chair, I have pain 4-6 in my right femur sometimes, but never tibia pain.
One of my major concerns is the use of opioid painkillers. I've been prescribed them before for other pain but never used them and just toughed it out. Now I wish I remember what I was prescribed to get an idea of what level of pain my doctor thought I was in, because for me it was a 3-4/10 but he must have thought it was much worse.
If you want to avoid opioids, look into cannabis formulations with increased CBD (the non-psychoative component of the plant). Cannabis doesn't cause addiction, and for some people (including me), it's much more effective (in the THC+CBD form) than opioids. Of course, pharma doesn't like this because it's much cheaper to get some weed than to pay for oxycodone and the like. Check https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-marijuana-is-legal-opioid-prescriptions-fall/.
Also, I've written extensively about pain at https://overrideyourgenetics.com/pain/.
$220k WTF???!! You'd have to be a multi-millionaire to justify spending that much on LL, so I hope you are? And even then, it's a ridiculous amount, particularly in your case, reading your post - sorry to say.
$180 for the surgery, ~$15k for accommodations & transport + whatever for food and fun in West Palm Beach =~ $220k. The exact amount might have been less, but on the scale of paying the loans (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/cost/) back over 5-7 years, it doens't make a difference.
I'm far from a millionaire, but after the surgery, I'm making more than I've ever made. Funny how that works. Puru is in the same situation. For me, having loans to pay back is a strong motivation to get stuff done.
About the crutches, I would beg to differ. I used the underarm ones, you can mimic walking better with those, plus they keep you more upright with better posture. Make sure you adjust the length so that they fit snugly under your underarms when standing up straight.
I admit I didn't try crutches for more than one day, but with the walker, I offloaded a minimal amount of weight on my arms, and was able to take long steps with good form and no balance issues. fallen774 did the same at Dr. M's advice. Once I switched to using one cane (which is what Paley advises for STRYDE patients (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5507.msg93463#msg93463)), I progressed from walker to walking unassisted in about 3 weeks (bought cane July 9, recorded that pool video July 29). How fast was your progress with crutches back in 2004, and how confident are you that you remember that accurately?
@notatroll: you're welcome, but please don't quote an entire long post with a video in it just to say "thanks" :)
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Thanks for the information regarding pain. I guess when I saw that one time description of 9/10 pain you had my mind fixated on it because, well, its pain. It makes sense that it was post surgery. I hope everything goes well for you. Stryde sounds like a massive improvement.
How long do you spend walking/cycling a day? Do you break it up into shorter sessions? Is pain the cue you use to determine if you have done enough for the day?
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Thanks for the kind words, Mirin.
I've noticed in your signature that you're already 179cm tall and want to gain 3-5cm. This is something I personally can't comprehend (being 5'10" is a dream), and you're already taller than 70% of men. I'm curious about your motives for getting a relatively small increase (3-5 cm). Is it the large wingspan?
I also only have a 30 inch inseam.. very short and stubby legs, 6'2 wingspan and long torso
I have had a lot of insecurities when it comes to height growing up. Mostly all my cousins and my brother (6'1) are over 6'. I played football in high school and was very good, but did not get a college scholarship for it due to height. one of the coaches who saw me play actually told me height at my position was the only reason he didn't offer. However, my brother who was 6'1 got a full ride scholarship to play college ball when I racked up way better stats than him at the same high school. I have no intention of playing football post LL lol, but I have had many circumstances come up like this in my life where I have been looked over, which only made my insecurities worse and made me realize how much stature actually means to society. Also relatively speaking, I always found myself to be short growing up due to the family I grew up in.
-Not doing this for girls. I have a loving gf who I have no intention of telling about this surgery that I will have in the future (lengthening small amount). Also will be in medical school, so I have done a lot of research on this surgical procedure myself as well
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I'm far from a millionaire, but after the surgery, I'm making more than I've ever made. Funny how that works. Puru is in the same situation. For me, having loans to pay back is a strong motivation to get stuff done.
Agreed. Having loans is a big motivator to focus and do stuff to improve your career.
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1. I haven't yet seen improvements in my life to justify the ~$220k total price tag for this surgery. I went from 5'5" to 5'8" so I'm still shorter than 70% of males. While I am taller than 75% of women, this isn't very useful as I already have a girlfriend. Nobody at work noticed that I was taller - not surprising, given we work at desks all the time. My friends were like "wow" the first day I came back home, but didn't care about it later (as they should). I haven't been to bars/clubs (not my scene) or social events yet, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
At work, some people (esp. women) are shorter than me. This makes *me* feel self-conscious so I prefer to sit, in order to not make them look up.
This makes sense. The biggest improvement I saw was in dating. Career wise, being short isn't really a setback for a software engineer. This may be why a lot of shorter people take this career subconsciously. A lot of tech CEOs are short (Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai). My current CEO is 5'4".
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How long do you spend walking/cycling a day? Do you break it up into shorter sessions? Is pain the cue you use to determine if you have done enough for the day?
Initially I thought cycling was really effective for flexibility (as Puru noted), but in my case, improvements only lasted for about 5 minutes. Walking seemed more effective.
Now I use a walkstation (https://amzn.to/2vJC7mX) at work to walk while reading, and yes, pain is the cue for when to stop. Yesterday I did one 20 minutes session at 1 mile per hour. I haven't yet done multiple sessions a day. I suspect the benefits plateau, because on days when I had to walk a lot vs. walking much less, I didn't feel disproportionately large improvements the next day. In other words, I suspect that time to heal and sleep aid the recovery more than the exercises I've been doing, and since I don't have much time these days to go all out on speeding up my recovery, I'm just letting healing take its course. But my all means, if you have time, do exercise more.
@Mirin, it's sad that people are so superficial where you live, and judge you so much for something like stature, over which you had little very control. Fortunately that's not the case here in Silicon Valley. Or at least people pretend it doesn't matter... I'm sure there's plenty of unconscious bias against short people, and I wish there were an Implicit association test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) for that.
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Alright, it's September 15, 6 months sharp since my tibias surgery, ~5 since the femurs, and about 3 months since I've stopped lengthening. I haven't been active on the forum because it seems the forum itself is badly neglected (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5585.msg94489#msg94489) and I don't want to invest in something that might disappear tomorrow, but anyway, thought I'd give an update. As always, my blog is up there and will be up for the foreseeable futures - https://overrideyourgenetics.com.
Progress
- I've been able to walk unassisted for more than a month, and... I went to Burning Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4v0Gt_iZk). Crazy, I know. Walked 2+ miles every day, got a blister, damaged my ankles and needed ~10 days for the ankle pain to go away, but - I survived Burning Man. To understand how large Burning Man is, those dots are cars and the longer ones are RVs: (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Burning_Man_aerial.jpg)
- I can climb stairs unassisted. Going down stairs is painful, and I can do it by putting a hand on the railing.
- Today I was able to squat unassisted. It's surprisingly tiring: after 10 lightly assisted squats (one hand on the back of a chair), my heart rate was around 100.
Limitations
- I still can't jog, let alone run.
- The gait is a bit wobbly (unless I really pay attention to walking correctly), and about 2x slower than normal
- Flexibility is poor: I can do maybe 90 degree splits (vs. the ~150 before), and I can only come about ~20cm from the floor if I try to touch my toes standing with my knees locked.
I shouldn't complain though, because I didn't spend much time in the gym or stretching. Progress in mobility and strength has been rather random. I expected that after walking a lot at Burning Man, I'd make great progress, but no - the ankle pain set me back by about a month. Then within a week, I became able to squat... go figure. What I did in that week that might have any connection to leg strength or mobility was one 13-minute session on the StairMaster (climbing neverending stairs, like an escalator). Whether progress is delayed by so many days that it's hard to establish cause & effect, or whether what really advances the recovery is time and sleep, I can't quite tell. Anyway, if you have time, do stretch and walk and bike.
PS: I've been on TV (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=9231.0)
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it is pretty disheartening that your recovery has been so slow considering the very conservative amount you have gained...
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@OverrideYourGenetics If you don't mind me asking, why lengthen only 7.5cm total though? Paying 180k at the best institute for limb lengthening and you go from 5'5" to 5'8" when you could lengthen to 5'10" or more?
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The amount of money doesn't really matter if you develop complications or face unexpected amount of pain. There are no guarantees in limb lengthening.
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The amount of money doesn't really matter if you develop complications or face unexpected amount of pain. There are no guarantees in limb lengthening.
My point was if you decide to go for the best in the field, then wouldn't it be wise to go for the highest amount said best in the field recommends? IIRC Paley's amounts were femur: 8cm and tibia: 6cm so he could've gained total of 14cm instead of 10cm considering he's 5'5". Disregard my other post, I thought his intention was to lengthen to 7.5 cm.
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first it's like android says in CLL money should be a secondary factor, can always make more $ it's super easy really
note:I'm not saying that mortgaging your homes is a good idea, know your capital and make a budget
second point, 7.5cm is a conservative amount but by no means small and doing an conservative amount plus 2 segments has the advantages of maintaining the biomechanical ratio and less lengthening equals better soft tissue adapation
if you do 14 cm vs 10 cm the recovery increases non-linearly is years instead of months, yes it can be done but it's not worth it imo, you have diminished returns and greater possibilities of complcations
PS: doctor paley maximum for quadrilateral lengthening is 10 cm or 4 inches, to do more, the procedures must be 1 year or so apart, ej: like tibia then a year later femur or quadrilateral then a year or so later repeat osteotomies\rebreaking
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Yep, the others covered pretty well the reasons why I stopped at ~3" total:
1. I developed nerve damage in the left shin. I still don't have normal sensation on the inside of my left shin.
2. I got very tight, despite the daily PT sessions at the Paley Institute (and twice a day throughout the last month of lengthening). PTs said they might need to have me stop lengthening. Thomas stretches were extremely painful (8/10).
3. I can still rebreak and lengthen in about 6 months if I want to pay the extra money and go through another recovery period.
4. I wanted to preserve function, so I'm not too disappointed, provided that I do recover to ~90% of pre-surgery functionality. Since I posted this, I made some more progress: now I can descend stairs without holding onto the rail. Yay!
5. My wingspan was already 2" shorter than my starting height, and is now 5" shorter. If I lengthen my legs even more, I'll look like a lowercase "t".
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Yep, the others covered pretty well the reasons why I stopped at ~3" total:
1. I developed nerve damage in the left shin. I still don't have normal sensation on the inside of my left shin.
2. I got very tight, despite the daily PT sessions at the Paley Institute (and twice a day throughout the last month of lengthening). PTs said they might need to have me stop lengthening. Thomas stretches were extremely painful (8/10).
3. I can still rebreak and lengthen in about 6 months if I want to pay the extra money and go through another recovery period.
4. I wanted to preserve function, so I'm not too disappointed, provided that I do recover to ~90% of pre-surgery functionality. Since I posted this, I made some more progress: now I can descend stairs without holding onto the rail. Yay!
5. My wingspan was already 2" shorter than my starting height, and is now 5" shorter. If I lengthen my legs even more, I'll look like a lowercase "t".
You took the right decision aesthetically and functionally wise. Nerve damage is a bit concerning but surgery was only 6 months ago. Congratulations for 4. I can't yet. :'(
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Yep, the others covered pretty well the reasons why I stopped at ~3" total:
1. I developed nerve damage in the left shin. I still don't have normal sensation on the inside of my left shin.
2. I got very tight, despite the daily PT sessions at the Paley Institute (and twice a day throughout the last month of lengthening). PTs said they might need to have me stop lengthening. Thomas stretches were extremely painful (8/10).
3. I can still rebreak and lengthen in about 6 months if I want to pay the extra money and go through another recovery period.
4. I wanted to preserve function, so I'm not too disappointed, provided that I do recover to ~90% of pre-surgery functionality. Since I posted this, I made some more progress: now I can descend stairs without holding onto the rail. Yay!
5. My wingspan was already 2" shorter than my starting height, and is now 5" shorter. If I lengthen my legs even more, I'll look like a lowercase "t".
was the nerve damage from the surgery or lengthening post surgery?
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was the nerve damage from the surgery or lengthening post surgery?
From lengthening. It appeared, I think, once I reached 3cm in the tibias. Dr. Paley said I could recover sensation, but it might take a year. I continued lengthening the tibias anyway, but this was concerning, and combined with getting very tight, I decided to stop for the time being.
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From lengthening. It appeared, I think, once I reached 3cm in the tibias. Dr. Paley said I could recover sensation, but it might take a year. I continued lengthening the tibias anyway, but this was concerning, and combined with getting very tight, I decided to stop for the time being.
thats interesting that nerve damage would happen with just 3 cm lengthened
Did you have sensation in that leg prior to hitting 3 cm?
Thanks
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thats interesting that nerve damage would happen with just 3 cm lengthened
Did you have sensation in that leg prior to hitting 3 cm?
Thanks
It actually doesnt surprise me. He was lengthening both tibia and femur at the same time. I had nerve damage on both sides and i lengthened separately. I ended up with drop foot on the left foot and decreased sensation on both front of my tibias.
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it is pretty disheartening that your recovery has been so slow considering the very conservative amount you have gained...
How slow do you think my recovery has been? Here's a timeline:
- 2018-Mar-15 - tibias surgery
- Apr 05 - femurs
- Jun 08 - stop lengthening
- Early Jul - walk with canes (unassisted). Never used crutches.
- Early Aug - walk unassisted
- Late Aug / early Sep - walk unassisted at f'in Burning Man
- Mid Sep - unassisted squats, going up and down stairs
I'm at ~3.5 months after stopping lengthening. I've done very minimal leg exercise (<30 minutes total per week (e.g. Stairmaster, stationary bike or walkstation). Of course, I've been walking around at home and at my sedentary job, but that's not any sort of specific rehab training. I haven't jogged yet. Not proud of how little work I've put into my recovery, but I guess I serve as a baseline - even if you just go about your day, you'll still recover. So have faith, my post-op crippled friends. :)
I'm also in my late 30s and had all four segments broken.
For comparison, here's Puru, age 26, only femurs, and working out the legs much more often than me:
- 2017-Sep-26 - femurs surgery (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg76611#msg76611)
- 2017-Dec-02 - stopped lengthening (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg79108#msg79108)
- 2018-Jan-09 - mobile with crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg80380#msg80380)
- Jan-21 - walk without crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg80923#msg80923)
- Jan-30 - walk 1/3 miles (1/2km) without crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg81345#msg81345) ("swaying like hell towards the end as I was getting tired")
- Feb-08 - normal gait and going up/down stairs (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg81647#msg81647) at only 2.25 months after stopping lengthening
- Feb-27 - jogging for 1 minute (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82441#msg82441) made legs sore
- Mar-03 - can't do body weight squats unassisted yet (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82506#msg82506)
- Mar-08 - walk for 3 miles without tiring (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82760#msg82760)
- Mar-25 - walk 6.5 miles/day, run up and down stairs easily (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg83441#msg83441). This was ~4 months after stopping lengthening.
- Mar-27 - can touch toes while bending with knees straight (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg83514#msg83514). Still can't squat unassisted.
- Aug-09 - can squat unassisted (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg93448#msg93448)
- Aug-17 - jogged 2 miles, legs sore (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg93904#msg93904)
Looks like Puru has recovered pretty much 100%, but let's see what he says (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg95447#msg95447).
He's also inspired me to try jogging next week!
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It actually doesnt surprise me. He was lengthening both tibia and femur at the same time. I had nerve damage on both sides and i lengthened separately. I ended up with drop foot on the left foot and decreased sensation on both front of my tibias.
when you say nerve damage, how severe are you talking
can you still walk with normal gait and run normal?
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when you say nerve damage, how severe are you talking
can you still walk with normal gait and run normal?
Well im only 1 month post frame removal and stop-lengthening so my gait sucks atm but i can walk unassisted. Yesterday i walked 3 miles till i started getting tired. The nerve damage was done to my peroneal nerve at the fibular head sometime during frame removal. Im not able to lift the foot up into dorsilflexion so im required to wear an AFO brace in order to walk or my foot just drags. I can move the foot to the sides and toes down just not up. Neurologist wants to give it 3-6 months to see if the nerve recovers if not then i will need a nerve decompression and hopefully that solves the problem.
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How slow do you think my recovery has been? Here's a timeline:
Your recovery is going great OYB considering you had all 4 bones broke. Great job!
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Well im only 1 month post frame removal and stop-lengthening so my gait sucks atm but i can walk unassisted. Yesterday i walked 3 miles till i started getting tired. The nerve damage was done to my peroneal nerve at the fibular head sometime during frame removal. Im not able to lift the foot up into dorsilflexion so im required to wear an AFO brace in order to walk or my foot just drags. I can move the foot to the sides and toes down just not up. Neurologist wants to give it 3-6 months to see if the nerve recovers if not then i will need a nerve decompression and hopefully that solves the problem.
Sorry to hear this. Paley's website says that foot drop is an emergency and needs immediate decompression. Maybe you should get a second opinion from another neurologist.
Also it is concerning that nerve damage happened during frame removal. You developed foot drop right after frame removal?
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How slow do you think my recovery has been? Here's a timeline:
- 2018-Mar-15 - tibias surgery
- Apr 05 - femurs
- Jun 08 - stop lengthening
- Early Jul - walk with canes (unassisted). Never used crutches.
- Early Aug - walk unassisted
- Late Aug / early Sep - walk unassisted at f'in Burning Man
- Mid Sep - unassisted squats, going up and down stairs
I'm at ~3.5 months after stopping lengthening. I've done very minimal leg exercise (<30 minutes total per week (e.g. Stairmaster, stationary bike or walkstation). Of course, I've been walking around at home and at my sedentary job, but that's not any sort of specific rehab training. I haven't jogged yet. Not proud of how little work I've put into my recovery, but I guess I serve as a baseline - even if you just go about your day, you'll still recover. So have faith, my post-op crippled friends. :)
I'm also in my late 30s and had all four segments broken.
For comparison, here's Puru, age 26, only femurs, and working out the legs much more often than me:
- 2017-Sep-26 - femurs surgery (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg76611#msg76611)
- 2017-Dec-02 - stopped lengthening (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg79108#msg79108)
- 2018-Jan-09 - mobile with crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg80380#msg80380)
- Jan-21 - walk without crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg80923#msg80923)
- Jan-30 - walk 1/3 miles (1/2km) without crutches (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg81345#msg81345) ("swaying like hell towards the end as I was getting tired")
- Feb-08 - normal gait and going up/down stairs (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg81647#msg81647) at only 2.25 months after stopping lengthening
- Feb-27 - jogging for 1 minute (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82441#msg82441) made legs sore
- Mar-03 - can't do body weight squats unassisted yet (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82506#msg82506)
- Mar-08 - walk for 3 miles without tiring (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg82760#msg82760)
- Mar-25 - walk 6.5 miles/day, run up and down stairs easily (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg83441#msg83441). This was ~4 months after stopping lengthening.
- Mar-27 - can touch toes while bending with knees straight (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg83514#msg83514). Still can't squat unassisted.
- Aug-09 - can squat unassisted (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg93448#msg93448)
- Aug-17 - jogged 2 miles, legs sore (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg93904#msg93904)
Looks like Puru has recovered pretty much 100%, but let's see what he says (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg95447#msg95447).
He's also inspired me to try jogging next week!
Sorry for the late reply. I was traveling through Europe. I'm glad that you did this summary. I was thinking of doing it but wasn't sure if anyone wanted to know. Its really useful for comparison though. I'm super jealous that you went to Burning Man! Maybe next year for me!
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Hey overrideyourgenetics
I read through your diary and you once mentioned that nail on of your legs had left almost no bone left on one side due to reaming. Did you ask the doctor about this?
And we would you hear about your recovery progress!
Thank you
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Hello OverrideYourGenetics, I wanted to ask you how are you doing today, I plan to do the same process with the same doctor and I see in your video of the pool that you walk a little weird, with your knees in a bit can be?
I also see your legs very very thin, with hardly any muscle.
Is this because I was in wheelchair for about 4 months or were you like this before the process?
You run? Do you go down and climb stairs properly? How about squats on the floor (squatting)?
You lost range of knee flexion?
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I read through your diary and you once mentioned that nail on of your legs had left almost no bone left on one side due to reaming. Did you ask the doctor about this?
I've never said that :)
Yes, the upper end of my right femur looks very thin on X-rays. I don't know why. Dr. Paley said not to worry. Other bone doctors I've asked said the same. I haven't asked for a second opinion from another CLL surgeon yet though.
I see in your video of the pool that you walk a little weird, with your knees in a bit can be?
I also see your legs very very thin, with hardly any muscle.
Is this because I was in wheelchair for about 4 months or were you like this before the process?
You run? Do you go down and climb stairs properly? How about squats on the floor (squatting)?
You lost range of knee flexion?
Not sure what "with your knees in a bit" means, but yes, I was walking a little weird. I still do, though less. Read below. I've started to re-gain leg muscle. Squats with heavy weight help, but I'm increasing the weight very gradually. I used to squat 5x5x275lbs before the surgery.
Here's an update on my blog - Seven months post CLL surgery (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/seven-months-later/).
Semi-formatted version below because this old (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5281) forum doesn't support pasting formatted text.
Today marks 7 months since my last surgery, the insertion of the PRECICE rods in my femurs. Thought I'd give an update.
Timeline
It's been 4 months since I stopped using the wheelchair (about a month after I stopped lengthening), and about 3 months of walking unaided. I haven't exercised as much as I should - only 2-3 times a week.
Progress
* The swelling in my legs has been gone for over a month
* I can squat with weights, and with far less pain. I can front squat 10 sets of 10 reps with a 50 lbs kettlebell.
* I can climb stairs without problems, and go down stairs, but slower than usual.
* I can jog, but only for about 20 seconds
* I can run on Precor treadmills for ~5 minutes at setting "5" (I should look up what speed that actually is).
Limitations
* My right knee hurts when I get up from a squat (3-4/10). The pain hasn't diminished for the last month, and got a little worse after I've done a bunch more walking over the last week. The area right below the kneecap feels different on the right knee - there's a noticeable dent when I touch it. The very top of the tibia hurts as if I banged my knee into a piece of furniture. Dr. Paley had said that permanent knee pain is a rare complication post-CLL, but I might just have it :(
* I can't run
* Perceptive people can tell I'm walking weird
How I feel
I see the world a bit differently. The difference in height is perceivable. I'm taller or about the same height as most women. I haven't tried any dating, so I don't know how that side of life would be impacted, but in general, at work and around random people at conferences, I feel more their equal. Being taller than women just feels good - it's as things are meant to be; or rather - being shorter than most women felt annoying and weird before the surgery.
It's funny that even though I know what it's like to be short, I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work (unless they're in a higher role than me, but I haven't actually met a manager shorter than me yet). So yes, the heightism bias turns out to be real in me, a rational software engineer, in one of the most "rational" of all places (Silicon Valley), who also used to be short!
When I meet a peer who's shorter, I have a tiny bit of trouble taking him seriously, unless I'm already impressed by his reputation. Seeing eye to eye with other men feels good. This may be a coincidence, or the result of having worked in my job for several years, but I've also just led a large project for the first time, and was assigned to lead another large one.
I was quite enthusiastic about that large project, and during a work trip to complete it, I was a lot more friendly to people. My attitude was picked up by Uber/Lyft drivers, who chatted me up more than usual (or maybe drivers in that city are more friendly?).
All in all, I can't say for sure it's the height, or other aspects of life that make me feel more confident, but I do feel better about myself now, even though I walk with a slight limp, and I might be left with permanent knee pain. Was it worth $200k? It depends on what $200k means to you. To me, it means paying back debts to the tune of $5k/month. From that perspective, it was not worth it - especially if the right knee pain doesn't go away after I take out the rods, or if I'm never able to run again.
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I've never said that :)
Yes, the upper end of my right femur looks very thin on X-rays. I don't know why. Dr. Paley said not to worry. Other bone doctors I've asked said the same. I haven't asked for a second opinion from another CLL surgeon yet though.
Not sure what "with your knees in a bit" means, but yes, I was walking a little weird. I still do, though less. Read below. I've started to re-gain leg muscle. Squats with heavy weight help, but I'm increasing the weight very gradually. I used to squat 5x5x275lbs before the surgery.
Here's an update on my blog - Seven months post CLL surgery (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/seven-months-later/).
Semi-formatted version below because this old (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5281) forum doesn't support pasting formatted text.
Today marks 7 months since my last surgery, the insertion of the PRECICE rods in my femurs. Thought I'd give an update.
Timeline
It's been 4 months since I stopped using the wheelchair (about a month after I stopped lengthening), and about 3 months of walking unaided. I haven't exercised as much as I should - only 2-3 times a week.
Progress
* The swelling in my legs has been gone for over a month
* I can squat with weights, and with far less pain. I can front squat 10 sets of 10 reps with a 50 lbs kettlebell.
* I can climb stairs without problems, and go down stairs, but slower than usual.
* I can jog, but only for about 20 seconds
* I can run on Precor treadmills for ~5 minutes at setting "5" (I should look up what speed that actually is).
Limitations
* My right knee hurts when I get up from a squat (3-4/10). The pain hasn't diminished for the last month, and got a little worse after I've done a bunch more walking over the last week. The area right below the kneecap feels different on the right knee - there's a noticeable dent when I touch it. The very top of the tibia hurts as if I banged my knee into a piece of furniture. Dr. Paley had said that permanent knee pain is a rare complication post-CLL, but I might just have it :(
* I can't run
* Perceptive people can tell I'm walking weird
How I feel
I see the world a bit differently. The difference in height is perceivable. I'm taller or about the same height as most women. I haven't tried any dating, so I don't know how that side of life would be impacted, but in general, at work and around random people at conferences, I feel more their equal. Being taller than women just feels good - it's as things are meant to be; or rather - being shorter than most women felt annoying and weird before the surgery.
It's funny that even though I know what it's like to be short, I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work (unless they're in a higher role than me, but I haven't actually met a manager shorter than me yet). So yes, the heightism bias turns out to be real in me, a rational software engineer, in one of the most "rational" of all places (Silicon Valley), who also used to be short!
When I meet a peer who's shorter, I have a tiny bit of trouble taking him seriously, unless I'm already impressed by his reputation. Seeing eye to eye with other men feels good. This may be a coincidence, or the result of having worked in my job for several years, but I've also just led a large project for the first time, and was assigned to lead another large one.
I was quite enthusiastic about that large project, and during a work trip to complete it, I was a lot more friendly to people. My attitude was picked up by Uber/Lyft drivers, who chatted me up more than usual (or maybe drivers in that city are more friendly?).
All in all, I can't say for sure it's the height, or other aspects of life that make me feel more confident, but I do feel better about myself now, even though I walk with a slight limp, and I might be left with permanent knee pain. Was it worth $200k? It depends on what $200k means to you. To me, it means paying back debts to the tune of $5k/month. From that perspective, it was not worth it - especially if the right knee pain doesn't go away after I take out the rods, or if I'm never able to run again.
Nice to hear from you man! thank you for the update and I am happy to see you are overall doing very good!
has your gait a lot improved since last video? on a scale of 1-100% where do you think your gait is?
Im sorry to see that you are having trouble with knee pain. I hope this is not related to internal tibia reaming and hope you can recover fully as soon as possible
Thank you for your time,
Mirin
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@OYG
Thank you very much for still bothering to post updates here. Thank you for the honest opinions, too. They're hard to come to by.
I hope the knee pain will go away in due time. It took 2 years for some CLLers to feel like their legs had "stabilized", and they weren't feeling any changes anymore.
All the best.
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Thanks for the reply OverrideYourGenetics
I really would fail the keyboard and I did not want to put in that moment ...
I will watch your progress.
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Your comment below?
It's funny that even though I know what it's like to be short, I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work (unless they're in a higher role than me, but I haven't actually met a manager shorter than me yet). So yes, the heightism bias turns out to be real in me, a rational software engineer, in one of the most "rational" of all places (Silicon Valley), who also used to be short!
When I meet a peer who's shorter, I have a tiny bit of trouble taking him seriously, unless I'm already impressed by his reputation. Seeing eye to eye with other men feels good. This may be a coincidence, or the result of having worked in my job for several years, but I've also just led a large project for the first time, and was assigned to lead another large one.
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Thats abit of a questionable way of thinking from someone who should know better considering they used to be 5'5. If you feel that way does this mean someone 5'10 can feel superior to you ?
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I agree with 4cm.
Although I appreciate your honesty as we all aren't angels and don't treat others perfectly all the time, you should at least overthink your thinking pattern in this matter.
Even though I was only 1,60m people who got to know me in school or university always treated me with respect. I was either elected as school's president by the majority of my whole school or was told how smart I seem by people who were taller than me later at university.
The size of a person shouldn't change the way you treat him/her. That person might be more succesful in certain areas of life than you. In the end you indeed might not be equals, maybe he/she is a better human.
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Lol he is being honest with you guys and you want him to change the unconscious way he thinks? I appreciate the honesty OYG, and I do see how you can feel that way. The same way a fat->skinny person will still subconsciously judge someone who is fat (of having poor judgement or just being lazy) even though they were once fat. The brain is silly that way.
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I also appreciate his honesty and is sure that he would have stopped to think how they looked at him and there is his thought. That then he reconsiders about it ...
I have a question OYG do you think that if you had not done the internal tibias, right now you would have pain in the knee?
I am planting to make 5cm in femur with Stryde
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Lol he is being honest with you guys and you want him to change the unconscious way he thinks? I appreciate the honesty OYG, and I do see how you can feel that way. The same way a fat->skinny person will still subconsciously judge someone who is fat (of having poor judgement or just being lazy) even though they were once fat. The brain is silly that way.
Well let me be the one to say that he can feel that way but thats as far as it goes, I can talk about my own experience fighting or you can go watch some ufc, tall guys get their asses kicked all the time. In cases of superiority the only time you can say who is superior over who is in the fight game. Look up a fight between mark hunt vs stefan struve.
Or even look up daniel cormier vs stipe miocic, floyd mayweather vs diego corales, matt sera vs gsp, manny pacquiao vs antonio margarito the list goes on for days
He can feel that but its only his own feeling, that comment hit a nerve with me because i grew up in the fighting arts and when novice tall people used to think they were somehow better than me a big part of me would love to put them in their place. I have seen tall guys not able to defend their gf's against attackers aswell.
Look when he said he cant take people shorter than him seriously ! ..........now that was what i thought was somthing he should be corrected on.
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How are you sir? I hope you must be enjoying your height and moved on.
How are the things going on since your last update? Did the pain on right knee subside and can you run now?
It would be very helpful if u could manage to update either here or in your blog.
Best of luck.
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How are you doing, OYG?
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April 2019 update - one year after the femur surgery
It's been a year after my surgeries. Life is very different from me now. I quit my job in Silicon Valley and I'm traveling the world, working on my startup and visiting new places. My legs are weaker and I'm less able than others to enjoy certain activities (e.g. rappelling down waterfalls), but I can function pretty much as well as before in life/society, since I didn't use to do many things that required leg strength or agility (dancing, martial arts, basketball). I haven't started dating again, so I can't comment on how women perceive me.
Walking is pretty normal. Nobody seems to notice anything unusual.
I can jog but for 2 minutes max; can't really run, except on sand (see my Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/BusLu9Pn6hb/)).
Can do 40 jumping jacks or more. Haven't tried more yet. I was surprised to see I could do those.
The pain in the right knee is still there when squatting or going down stairs, esp. if the stairs are tall. Dr. Paley said not to do deep squats, but do leg presses until the knee pain disappears. I don't know when and if that will happen - so keep in mind that even with the best doctors, there can still be complications, especially if you're older. The left knee has no problems whatsoever - so my right knee pain isn't because I haven't trained properly - I assure you that I trained both knees equally. :) Dr. Paley did acknowledge a risk of permanent knee pain after the tibia surgery:
Very little if any knee pin[sic] in our patients with CLL after tibial lengthening. I think it has to do with the minimally invasive we[sic] we insert the rod and avoid damage or irritation to the patellar tendon.
Dr. Robbins (Dr. Paley's colleague) told me that removing the rods won't improve the knee situation, and recommended a knee specialist.
Surgery isn't an exact science. Just like Puru - his left leg was totally normal after the rods removal surgery (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg104571#msg104571), but the right one was in pain for ~2 weeks.
A week ago I started training hard, every day, so let's see what that does. Already I ended up with severe right knee pain one day after training (I was limping), but it went away with ice and after a good night's sleep.
I also have trouble stretching. Pain level 3-5 if I try touching my toes with knees locked. I can't do a heel sit (https://goo.gl/images/xrSdjN) - there's ~3cm between my heels and the butt. Puru can.
After the surgery, I had no sensation in the left calf. That's been coming back slowly, but it's still at ~70% compared to the right calf.
I've also answered many other questions in a sort of "guest post" on Puru's diary (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=4823.msg111264#msg111264) :) Go check them out. You can compare our outcomes to some degree.
As for the folks criticizing how my subconscious feels about shorter people: tough luck. All I can do about it is be polite, respectful, egalitarian and friendly. I've never mistreated anyone, sorter or taller, on purpose. Or not taken them seriously because of some physical characteristic (because of terrible grammar - yes, I confess to that). What I'm saying is that I've become aware of how my subconscious reacts when it encounters others shorter than me. Read the summary of the book "Blink" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking) for more on the topic of first impressions. This isn't something you can control, or even understand very well. You can be aware of it though, and this surgery made me very aware of how people perceive shorter people; and also of how people can and do consciously combat the heightism bias, as much as they can.
Fun fact: now that I'm taller, when I stand in front of a shorter friend, I spread my legs to stretch (they know I need to stretch), and also to become shorter than I normally am. It makes me feel more comfortable to not be much taller.
Future plans: schedule the rods removal surgery.
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Thanks for the update! Very interesting. Hopefully the pain will go away.
I guess you're right about the subconscious feelings. I wish you the best!
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Hi OYG
Thanks for sharing your experience with this community!! I am very sorry that you are having some problem in your knees. Hopefully they will get better soon.
Wish you the best of luck!
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Would it be different if youbhad used stryde on Femurs only.
Also when did you walk with assistance as well as without for the first time post surgery.
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Would it be different if youbhad used stryde on Femurs only.
How would I know? Aside from using STRYDE on one femur and PRECICE on the other + the tibia.
STRYDE is clearly superior to PRECICE because you can walk way, way sooner (1-2 weeks after the surgery), so your muscles will atrophy much less. There's no decision to make here. The difference in price is insignificant given the difference in recovery time and quality.
Femurs only vs. tibias+femurs is another question.
Also when did you walk with assistance as well as without for the first time post surgery.
What kind of assistance? Don't be lazy! Check my diary a few posts up for when I could walk with a walker vs. cane (I never used crutches). However, again, that's irrelevant, because nobody should do PRECICE any more.
In other news, mini-update:
- Yesterday the pain in the right knee almost disappeared (!). Like, literally, overnight. What I did was a bunch of adventures during the weekend, including river rafting and 2+ hours of driving an ATV. Maybe the vibrations from the ATV helped (sounds weird, but there are devices for sale that just vibrate your legs, for some alleged benefits). Anyway, let's see if the pain comes back.
- Today I was able to do 100 jumping jacks, without knee pain during or after.
- Also did 20 back squats with the empty bar (45 lbs), and 10 reps @ 65 lbs. This is not a big deal, given that 5 months ago, I was able to do 10 sets x 10 reps with a 50 lbs kettlebell (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=5352.msg98530#msg98530). It's hard to keep good form: I tend to lean forward, and if I try to compensate, I feel like I'll fall backwards.
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Thanks for the reply and good luck
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Hey man,
I hope that knee pain disappears for good asap!
Thanks for updates.
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Knee pain indeed seems kinda gone. Will see for sure next week when I go back to the gym.
Mini-update for Wednesday, April 17, 2019: I did 10 Smith squats[url=http://with 115 lbs today. The Smith machine helped a lot with balance. I could also jog for 2 minutes. Had to slow down to walking because of impact pain, in the left knee and right quad. Cardio-wise, I could have gone longer. On an [url=https://exrx.net/Aerobic/Exercises/EllipticalCrossTrainer]elliptical machine] with 115 lbs today. The Smith machine helped a lot with balance. I could also jog for 2 minutes. Had to slow down to walking because of impact pain, in the left knee and right quad. Cardio-wise, I could have gone longer. On an [url=https://exrx.net/Aerobic/Exercises/EllipticalCrossTrainer]elliptical machine (https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/SMSquat) I can go for 10-20 minutes, because it absorbs the landing impact.
Side note: when I walk with weight (e.g. a backpack) or when I exercise, I'm sweating WAY, WAY more than before the surgery. Nobody I know sweats that badly. Not sure why that is. I did lose some conditioning by being in a wheelchair for months, and I used to sweat before, but not to this level.
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Hi OYG
Congrats on your improvement on the knee pain! It looks promising. Hope you to recover soon!
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HI OverrideyourGenetics, Ive seen that you've apparently used Internal Precice 2 on both Femurs & Tibias....
Now please let me ask you:
1) How did each one feel, which one felt more unbearable & harder pain ; Tibias or Femurs?
2) Knee Pain, regarding to this do you feel that internal tibia= knee pain permenantly or does femurs has that risk too?
3) Internal infection in femurs ? what really are the dangers and troubles of having a nail inside your bone canal did you take multiple antibiotics throughout your journey ?
4) Achieveing the maximum goals (8cm) in Femurs....for someone like me i am a girl and financially not rich so i get one shot at this and i am starting at 152 cm so getting the full and i mean FULL 8 cm is the only option....is that possible or are there other dimensions to the issue ?
*Thank you in advance & sorry for too many questions but there arent much patients that have been through both .
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Any updates for us OYG?
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HI OverrideyourGenetics, Ive seen that you've apparently used Internal Precice 2 on both Femurs & Tibias....
Now please let me ask you:
1) How did each one feel, which one felt more unbearable & harder pain ; Tibias or Femurs?
2) Knee Pain, regarding to this do you feel that internal tibia= knee pain permenantly or does femurs has that risk too?
3) Internal infection in femurs ? what really are the dangers and troubles of having a nail inside your bone canal did you take multiple antibiotics throughout your journey ?
4) Achieveing the maximum goals (8cm) in Femurs....for someone like me i am a girl and financially not rich so i get one shot at this and i am starting at 152 cm so getting the full and i mean FULL 8 cm is the only option....is that possible or are there other dimensions to the issue ?
*Thank you in advance & sorry for too many questions but there arent much patients that have been through both .
Hi Kenda,
You say you're not financially rich. That's OK. I've also noticed that your post contained quite a few spelling errors. If you were typing from a phone or something like that, please disregard what I'm about to say. But if the only reasons for those errors were insufficient practice with English or not using the browser's English spell checker, I have good news for you! We live in a digital economy. Wherever you're from, you can clearly access the Internet. You can work online, for far richer employers than in your home country. Even if you're from a developed country, by working online you can access employers and capital you'd have a very hard time otherwise.
But so can everyone else. There is competition. There are three main ways to differentiate when doing work online:
- Doing it fast
- Doing it cheap
- Doing it well
Doing it well involves most of the time writing well. Even if you do graphic design. I've hired people online through sites like Odesk, and if someone writes poorly, I won't work with them any more. That's because I care about quality, and I'm willing to pay for it.
So my advice to you is, consider investing in mastering English. It's the world's universal language, and that's not going to change. Chinese won't take over (sorry).
Moreover, all modern browsers have a spell checker built-in. Set it to English. Set your computer's language to English, your phone's, and so on. I'm sorry, but no other language correlates better with wealth (https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/).
I'm not sure what you hope to achieve by being 160cm female instead of 152. You'll still be in the bottom 25% of females by height (http://overrideyourgenetics.com/about/) (unless you plan to stay in a country with lower average height), and that's if *everything* goes well. Learning English has no risk of screwing you up forever.
Now to answer your questions:
1. Tibias vs. femur pain is irrelevant if you can only do one and want 8cm. Tibias can only be lengthened safely by 5cm. That said, tibia pain was slightly worse, fortunately.
2. No risk of knee pain with femurs, because the nail goes in through the hip.
3. No infection risk, unless you do the surgery in a cheapo hospital.
4. Yes, the other dimension is to invest in yourself and borrow money to do quadrilateral lengthening, then pay back the loans over time. See my article https://overrideyourgenetics.com/cost/.
Any updates for us OYG?
Yes. I'm taking the rods out next week. Ask me anything.
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It’s not my place to answer on behalf of Kenda,
But I will try to. As you can see on the scale following the link you have shared, every 5 cm on a height of a woman, puts her in a next height category or even further, closer to average. In other worlds, the same 8 cm height increase makes a bigger difference for a female vs male.
You can also see how short guys on this forum, try and do get third surgery done, even if they don’t become average height. They just want to be taller then what they were in the past. And I get it. They compete more against themselves, not as much against other guys.
So, I think your question is unfair to Kenda.
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Overrideyourgenetics,
Oh hold on there lil homie, whats up with u?
Got a english course and you’re so pumped about it.
First of all im a british education student! I write with mistkaes because i dont give a fk! And thats my ipad so the keyboard is retarded
Secondly i dont know u talking about! Like ur telling me to work as a graphic designer to make money or work online as what ??
Lol talkin about some grammar mistake homie chill i could give two f’s about autocorrect!
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& if 160cm is the bottom 25% of females then what females are you talkin about if we would even call them females
Godzilla?
U lost and confused , go sit on google learn some because u seem pressed!!
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It’s not my place to answer on behalf of Kenda,
But I will try to. As you can see on the scale following the link you have shared, every 5 cm on a height of a woman, puts her in a next height category or even further, closer to average. In other worlds, the same 8 cm height increase makes a bigger difference for a female vs male.
You can also see how short guys on this forum, try and do get third surgery done, even if they don’t become average height. They just want to be taller then what they were in the past. And I get it. They compete more against themselves, not as much against other guys.
So, I think your question is unfair to Kenda.
No problem, his question isnt even a question he’s just trynna tell me not to do LL
& he thinks that 175 to up is normal height for girls, in what country! Russia?
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Overrideyourgenetics,
Oh hold on there lil homie, whats up with u?
Got a english course and you’re so pumped about it.
First of all im a british education student! I write with mistkaes because i dont give a fk! And thats my ipad so the keyboard is retarded
Secondly i dont know u talking about! Like ur telling me to work as a graphic designer to make money or work online as what ??
Lol talkin about some grammar mistake homie chill i could give two f’s about autocorrect!
Pay no mind to OYGs comment. Seems like after LL this guy became a real douche bag. Just read a few of his past posts.
To Racurz: Thanks for the well wishes and I don't mean to sound mean, but you may get more out of life with much less of an investment by improving your reading comprehension and English writing skills.
And what he wrote in one of his updates:
It's funny that even though I know what it's like to be short, I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work (unless they're in a higher role than me, but I haven't actually met a manager shorter than me yet). So yes, the heightism bias turns out to be real in me, a rational software engineer, in one of the most "rational" of all places (Silicon Valley), who also used to be short!
When I meet a peer who's shorter, I have a tiny bit of trouble taking him seriously, unless I'm already impressed by his reputation.
Clearly he likes making himself feel better by putting people down, or at least trying....
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Pay no mind to OYGs comment. Seems like after LL this guy became a real douche bag. Just read a few of his past posts.
To Racurz: Thanks for the well wishes and I don't mean to sound mean, but you may get more out of life with much less of an investment by improving your reading comprehension and English writing skills.
And what he wrote in one of his updates:
It's funny that even though I know what it's like to be short, I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work (unless they're in a higher role than me, but I haven't actually met a manager shorter than me yet). So yes, the heightism bias turns out to be real in me, a rational software engineer, in one of the most "rational" of all places (Silicon Valley), who also used to be short!
When I meet a peer who's shorter, I have a tiny bit of trouble taking him seriously, unless I'm already impressed by his reputation.
Clearly he likes making himself feel better by putting people down, or at least trying....
I really dont care about this lil homie.
But he better be useful & say something useful or else, one will put him in his place in the comments.
But if he gonna talk about english courses when basically my original question had Purfect eng , then he has some inner problems with himself lol.
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OverrideyourGenetics You are rude . Who cares about Kenda English ! Open world open mind .
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OverrideyourGenetics You are rude . Who cares about Kenda English ! Open world open mind .
Bro! My English is literally perfect! Read my original question to him! No mistakes, he seem like a 40 yr old that gets angry if i write your instead of you’re or sth.
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wtf happened to overrideyourgenetics? You have a toxic personality, no wonder u're in that situation of yours.
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instaled spell cheker. is it workin?
seriously chill out with OverrideYourGenetics everyone.
OverrideYourGenetics how is ur dating life after LL? are u thinking of getting married some time?
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he seems to have an ego about himself now and perceives himself better than those shorter than him.
I sense some narcissistic tendencies. Hopefully it is not true, I enjoyed reading the diary though.
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Hi OYG,
How strongly do you recommend LL surgery for someone who wants to enter business in technology?I am 5 foot 6 inches and 30 years old working as a Software Engineer planning to move into the business side.Do the chances become slim if you are 5 foot 6 and planning to enter the business side?
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Hi Kenda,
You say you're not financially rich. That's OK. I've also noticed that your post contained quite a few spelling errors. If you were typing from a phone or something like that, please disregard what I'm about to say. But if the only reasons for those errors were insufficient practice with English or not using the browser's English spell checker, I have good news for you! We live in a digital economy. Wherever you're from, you can clearly access the Internet. You can work online, for far richer employers than in your home country. Even if you're from a developed country, by working online you can access employers and capital you'd have a very hard time otherwise.
But so can everyone else. There is competition. There are three main ways to differentiate when doing work online:
- Doing it fast
- Doing it cheap
- Doing it well
Doing it well involves most of the time writing well. Even if you do graphic design. I've hired people online through sites like Odesk, and if someone writes poorly, I won't work with them any more. That's because I care about quality, and I'm willing to pay for it.
So my advice to you is, consider investing in mastering English. It's the world's universal language, and that's not going to change. Chinese won't take over (sorry).
Moreover, all modern browsers have a spell checker built-in. Set it to English. Set your computer's language to English, your phone's, and so on. I'm sorry, but no other language correlates better with wealth (https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/).
I'm not sure what you hope to achieve by being 160cm female instead of 152. You'll still be in the bottom 25% of females by height (http://overrideyourgenetics.com/about/) (unless you plan to stay in a country with lower average height), and that's if *everything* goes well. Learning English has no risk of screwing you up forever.
Now to answer your questions:
1. Tibias vs. femur pain is irrelevant if you can only do one and want 8cm. Tibias can only be lengthened safely by 5cm. That said, tibia pain was slightly worse, fortunately.
2. No risk of knee pain with femurs, because the nail goes in through the hip.
3. No infection risk, unless you do the surgery in a cheapo hospital.
4. Yes, the other dimension is to invest in yourself and borrow money to do quadrilateral lengthening, then pay back the loans over time. See my article https://overrideyourgenetics.com/cost/.
Yes. I'm taking the rods out next week. Ask me anything.
This guy is a real businessman who is playing marketing tactic to promote his own website by bashing other users. Link goes to his web blog related to limb lengthening consultancy ( He is using SEO technique). His website says 250$ for consultation price on limb lengthening. By bashing other users, he creates TRP like TV show to get users for his own blog.
This forum need some serious administration.
PS: I am editing. I just saw his whole profile. He is promoting himself & his blog from the day he joined. That's real marketing. Good luck dude on fundraiser. 🙄
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wtf he has given enough free informaton than most patients gave and definitely more than u will ever give. if he wants to charge money for a consult then what is wrong?>
its also my opinion that is he charging so much for people who were in his position before but its his wish. but again hes done more than most people here for free.
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Why are some of the men on here telling the women not to do LL? You don’t do it either! Smh
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From what I've seen women generally have more complications,so that's why it's discouraged. Most of the worst outcomes have been women. Then again it could purely be coincidence
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Jesus I hope not!
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why women have more complications?!!
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If he has a hard time taking people shorter than him seriously, he must understand he’s in a similar boat. At 5’8, any wealthy predominantly white area is going to have an average of 5’11. They don’t take him seriously. He’s also unimpressive by his own logic. They probably don’t see him much different than a 5’5-5’6 guy. He’s worried about a slow potentially ultimately unfavorable outcome, so he’s desperate to find validation for his choice to do this in the first place, ergo thinking little of shorter dudes. It’s fking laughable.
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Hey! Do you happen to have a video of yourself walking by any chance? I'm scared that doing quad LL will permanently make me walk funny should I choose to do it.
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Hi everyone,
I am not going to answer the PMs anymore. This will be my final post here, my LL journey has concluded.
Its been a rough ride, doing quad with Paley was by no means a cakewalk. But the end result is satisfying. My state right now is slight x-legs but not noticable. I am able to jog for 2 minutes but the impact on hard terrain does cause knee pain. My PT (which I will talk about in detail below) says that the muscles and tendons are stretched and at max capacity, its gonna take a year or two before they start loosening up. Frankly I don't really care, I was never much of a sports person before LL. I can walk, I can go up and down stairs without problem. I can sit for extended time. In fact last monday we had this presentation at "JavaNerds and Beer"-event in SF where I sat in same position on a plastic chair for 4 hours and I had no trouble getting up and walking normally afterwards.
I feel a bit tearful writing this post as I know I have to let you go, our paths diverge here. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this diary and the authors of the diaries. You have been incredible resource for me. I would never have been able to do this surgery without you guys and gals!
And finally about my PT. One thing this whole demanding process has thought me is, you only have one life. Dont let anyone else dictate how you should spend your days on this beautiful planet. Make as much out of your time, enjoy every day, live the life you always wanted.
My PT, 10 years younger me awakened something in me, a feeling that I cannot describe in words. We grew fond of each other and finally he confessed to me he had developed feelings for me.
We started dating and even travelled together. It was really love at first sight. I have come out of closet and told my family and close friends about it. They have been all supportive. Thats it folks....
Thank you all and good bye!
8)
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I would like to ask you if the person jumping your instagram is a former LLer.
But anyway, it was good to have you with us. Now, have a good luck with your new life.
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What a plot twist
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This will be an end of an era. We will miss your insight and perspectives. I wish you all the best on your future! If you happen to be in my city (I pinged you earlier) PM my Reddit handle reddit.com/u/Purushrottam and I’ll be more than happy to grab a drink.
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What a plot twist
lol
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1,60 is short even here in Brazil!!!!! So chill girl..... 1,52cm i tought you were in an asian country
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So you sent me your google research about height in Brazil, but sorry your research is wrong.
I'm Brazilian i live here and i traveled the whole country, So I can tell you People are much taller than that.
5'7 man is a short man here
5'3 is a short woman here
And my comment about Kenda, yes 5'2 is short even here in Brazil. 5'2 is an asian country height.
Travel and you will see for yourself
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How can you argue with statistics and surveys?
Just because you think they are wrong, doesn’t make them wrong.
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Dude is trolling as OverrideYourGenetics. There’s a typo in the name.
Genius trolling. However, I just wish we could live in a world where short Muslim Indian professors teaching English in London spent their time more wisely. Why must Muslims be so angry?
Hi everyone,
I am not going to answer the PMs anymore. This will be my final post here, my LL journey has concluded.
Its been a rough ride, doing quad with Paley was by no means a cakewalk. But the end result is satisfying. My state right now is slight x-legs but not noticable. I am able to jog for 2 minutes but the impact on hard terrain does cause knee pain. My PT (which I will talk about in detail below) says that the muscles and tendons are stretched and at max capacity, its gonna take a year or two before they start loosening up. Frankly I don't really care, I was never much of a sports person before LL. I can walk, I can go up and down stairs without problem. I can sit for extended time. In fact last monday we had this presentation at "JavaNerds and Beer"-event in SF where I sat in same position on a plastic chair for 4 hours and I had no trouble getting up and walking normally afterwards.
I feel a bit tearful writing this post as I know I have to let you go, our paths diverge here. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this diary and the authors of the diaries. You have been incredible resource for me. I would never have been able to do this surgery without you guys and gals!
And finally about my PT. One thing this whole demanding process has thought me is, you only have one life. Dont let anyone else dictate how you should spend your days on this beautiful planet. Make as much out of your time, enjoy every day, live the life you always wanted.
My PT, 10 years younger me awakened something in me, a feeling that I cannot describe in words. We grew fond of each other and finally he confessed to me he had developed feelings for me.
We started dating and even travelled together. It was really love at first sight. I have come out of closet and told my family and close friends about it. They have been all supportive. Thats it folks....
Thank you all and good bye!
8)
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Dude is trolling as OverrideYourGenetics. There’s a typo in the name.
Genius trolling. However, I just wish we could live in a world where short Muslim Indian professors teaching English in London spent their time more wisely. Why must Muslims be so angry?
Haha, nice catch man. I read this part probably like 3 times in the past months and I was like wtff now I can see. Idk how you caught that, I would've never noticed cuz the real OYG didn't give a shiet.
It might be his alternative account, who knows lol. It's like an exact clone, and it's even older. So weird. edit: real OYG pointed out this wasn't the case
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This forum need some serious administration.
Yes it does. Especially when stalkers create fake profiles with very similar usernames and post completely bogus made up shiet and there's nothing you can do about that.
Look closely at that fake post. The username is "OverrideYouGenetics". No "R".
Click that username. No posts since 2015 until that one. I'm honored to be so targeted, though I have no idea what I did to deserve that. If I pissed someone off, I'm sorry.
Needless to say, that post is completely fabricated.
The reason I didn't give a shiet was that I have better things to do with my time and new life than dive in the negativity and laziness exhibited on this forum. However, someone who booked a consult with me pointed out that fake post, so here I am. I didn't run away with any PT, and you wouldn't catch me dead at a Java meetup. I also did not become gay. That one was pretty funny.
However, I'm going to keep my contributions on this forum at a minimum, and link to articles I'll still share for free on my website. The latest two are an update about the rods removal surgery (http://overrideyourgenetics.com/rods-removal/), and a list of items to have ready for the recovery period (https://overrideyourgenetics.com/tools).
Hi OYG,
How strongly do you recommend LL surgery for someone who wants to enter business in technology?I am 5 foot 6 inches and 30 years old working as a Software Engineer planning to move into the business side.Do the chances become slim if you are 5 foot 6 and planning to enter the business side?
Not strongly, especially at your age, and especially now that Covid is making remote work the norm. Just don't stand in front of the webcam during conferences :)
On a more serious note, I'm writing a post on how to decide if you should have this surgery. The general idea is that I recommend maximally improving your life in other areas first (e.g. study charisma and leadership and sales in your case), and only when you're reasonably sure that height is the only thing holding you back from a quantum leap in success, have the surgery. There might be an exception to this - if you're very young (under 25) and very motivated, because you can achieve an excellent recovery and have plenty of time to really enjoy the difference height makes in that age group.
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Hi everyone,
I am not going to answer the PMs anymore. This will be my final post here, my LL journey has concluded.
Its been a rough ride, doing quad with Paley was by no means a cakewalk. But the end result is satisfying. My state right now is slight x-legs but not noticable. I am able to jog for 2 minutes but the impact on hard terrain does cause knee pain. My PT (which I will talk about in detail below) says that the muscles and tendons are stretched and at max capacity, its gonna take a year or two before they start loosening up. Frankly I don't really care, I was never much of a sports person before LL. I can walk, I can go up and down stairs without problem. I can sit for extended time. In fact last monday we had this presentation at "JavaNerds and Beer"-event in SF where I sat in same position on a plastic chair for 4 hours and I had no trouble getting up and walking normally afterwards.
I feel a bit tearful writing this post as I know I have to let you go, our paths diverge here. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this diary and the authors of the diaries. You have been incredible resource for me. I would never have been able to do this surgery without you guys and gals!
And finally about my PT. One thing this whole demanding process has thought me is, you only have one life. Dont let anyone else dictate how you should spend your days on this beautiful planet. Make as much out of your time, enjoy every day, live the life you always wanted.
My PT, 10 years younger me awakened something in me, a feeling that I cannot describe in words. We grew fond of each other and finally he confessed to me he had developed feelings for me.
We started dating and even travelled together. It was really love at first sight. I have come out of closet and told my family and close friends about it. They have been all supportive. Thats it folks....
Thank you all and good bye!
8)
I suspect this is the work of a member who went with various monikers like tlannister, ned_flanders, third_world, tinyTL and now kusop (and this name was changed to mimic "OYG"). Going through the posting history makes this apparent. Quite disturbing to be honest. You can find recurring themes of hatred towards homosxxuals, minorities and even LL patients for no reason. Joking around is fine, but this last post was a new low.
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wtf happened to overrideyourgenetics? You have a toxic personality, no wonder u're in that situation of yours.
Here is a fine comment from the aforementioned gentleman.
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What a plot twist
What a fqn twist lol I did NOT SEE that coming
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Slow? 6 months form first operation and walking around during man + stairs. I see that as a success.
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"I can't help but feel somehow "superior" over shorter people at work" haha! So funny. So human.