Limb Lengthening Forum
Limb Lengthening Surgery => Limb Lengthening Discussions => Topic started by: 44victim on November 30, 2020, 11:19:58 PM
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I'm currently 5'5 (165cm) and 18 years old (still in 11th grade due to getting held back in the eighth grade) My only motivation to do good in school is that I might be able to get a good paying job in cyber security or something else tech related to eventually safe up for LL. Basically my question is, if I had enough money to afford two surgeries, what's the max total lengthening someone could get? Is it different for each person? I read that gaining 8cm in the first surgery on the femur and then another 8cm in the second surgery on the tibiae was possible but I've only seen people gaining 3-4inches here. I've even seen a little person gain a whole 12 inches but I'm guessing that it's easier for little people to gain more. Thanks in advance.
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You've got it right. It depends on the person, and little people's tissues can handle a lot more lengthening than non-little people's.
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Do you know if there's anything I can do to increase how much my tissue can handle for when I get the surgery? If so, would it allow me to gain a few more centimeters or would it just make the process less painful? Thanks for the answer by the way
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It's probably some combination of genetics and behavior. You can do pilates, yoga, stretching, etc and that will probably help somewhat, but it's hard to say how much. I think stretching won't just make it less painful; the more stretched out you are going in, the less your body will have to stretch in such a short amount of time as a lengthening phase. And once your bones are lengthened, just the act of standing and walking becomes a stretching exercise on those muscles and tendons: they're too short and have your body weight pushing on them to get longer.
A lot of people approach LL wanting to get back to normal ASAP, but only severe contracture won't go away eventually with enough stretching after the fact. I lengthened a lot, and it took me a long time to get back to normal, but I did.