Limb Lengthening Forum

This is fundamentally untrue. How we carry ourselves and what energy we bring out has a lot to do how people treat us. To say that it doesn't matter is equally ignorant as to say that height doesn't matter. Both affect the final equation.

Many people here seem to be against the other aspects besides leg lengthening, which to me is very strange if your true honest goal is to improve your life. Leg lengthening will do a lot for sure based on people's positive experiences, but you don't have to be against self-work, confidence, therapy etc to be positively advocating LL. Many people obsessed with height and LL keep saying that acceptance is cope. To me it actually sounds very dismissive towards those who choose to "cope".

Prince coped pretty well for being around 5'2". People will say, oh that's because he was rich, successful superstar. But he was short, sexy, confident and beautiful before he was any of those other things. He had insecurity about his height, I mean he was truly short. But he sure coped well, much better than most six footers out there.

I'm all for leg lengthening for those who want it, and I'm somewhat considering it myself too. And I'm not trying to deny how society generally views and treats short men. But just saying, those who cope well and live happy, successful lives, deserve more than people saying "he was just coping". And of all people, it is the short men out here calling them "copers". Of all people you would think short people would have empathy and respect for those who go through all that with the disadvantage they have and beat the odds.

Just my opinion of course.

I 100% agree. Technically living is “cope” cause we’re all gonna die lol. Everyone has things they don’t like about themself, maybe it’s height, hair, weight, etc and truthfully speaking sometimes self acceptance can really do wonders for you. Sure people will still treat you differently, but what really matters is how you feel about yourself.

Limb lengthening can truly change the lives of those who are truly fundamentally dissatisfied with their height in the hands of a good surgeon. You can see plenty of examples of this on this forum and in cyborg4life podcast

However there are a lot of people who shouldn’t do this. Everyone whose done this procedure goes in depth on how difficult it is and you must keep in mind this is an extreme solution and should only be done when your height dissatisfaction is that great.

The truth is most people reading this should probably not do LL / will never get it. However for those who constantly obsess over their height and have tried numerous times to accept themselves, this procedure has the chance to really help you.

Self acceptance and “coping” should be tried before resorting to LL because at the end of the day you should not be spending 10s of thousands to please others, what really matters is how YOU feel about yourself. If LL will make you feel better about yourself, then maybe it’s for you.

 I wish everyone the best of luck no matter what choice they decide to make.

This is also just my opinion
Cheers

LL at 5.9ft is the dumbest thing ever. Cant say it enough. 5.9ft is not short by any measure.

I just read your diary and it motivated me even more , im going with the same surgeon as well. I mean listen. I have been surrounded my whole life with tall people , everyone in my family is 6’2. i have planned alot for the future and to increase my height is one of them. Im glad your journey was successful

Acceptance is a cope. How you treat yourself doesn't effect how others will treat you.

This is fundamentally untrue. How we carry ourselves and what energy we bring out has a lot to do how people treat us. To say that it doesn't matter is equally ignorant as to say that height doesn't matter. Both affect the final equation.

Many people here seem to be against the other aspects besides leg lengthening, which to me is very strange if your true honest goal is to improve your life. Leg lengthening will do a lot for sure based on people's positive experiences, but you don't have to be against self-work, confidence, therapy etc to be positively advocating LL. Many people obsessed with height and LL keep saying that acceptance is cope. To me it actually sounds very dismissive towards those who choose to "cope".

Prince coped pretty well for being around 5'2". People will say, oh that's because he was rich, successful superstar. But he was short, sexy, confident and beautiful before he was any of those other things. He had insecurity about his height, I mean he was truly short. But he sure coped well, much better than most six footers out there.

I'm all for leg lengthening for those who want it, and I'm somewhat considering it myself too. And I'm not trying to deny how society generally views and treats short men. But just saying, those who cope well and live happy, successful lives, deserve more than people saying "he was just coping". And of all people, it is the short men out here calling them "copers". Of all people you would think short people would have empathy and respect for those who go through all that with the disadvantage they have and beat the odds.

Just my opinion of course.

LL at 5.9ft is the dumbest thing ever. Cant say it enough. 5.9ft is not short by any measure.

the term body dysmorphia implies its a mental issue i.e "in your head"

there are documented, studied, and obvious major drawbacks to being ACTUALLY short (below 5'7/5'8 in USA).

I think this is somewhat of a misconception. It's more that you have an immense preocupation with a flaw, not that the flaw doesn't exist.

I kinda think OP confuses body dysphoria with body dysmorphia. The former describes a state in which the patient is suffering from the mental issues caused by being short/fatty etc., while the latter describes a state in which the patient is still doing so while being slightly or even not flawed body-wise.

I think the two have become more difficult to distinguish because height as an attractive quality has become so much more of a prevalent talking point. The modern-day narrative is that you're short if you're 5'9 -- that anything under the average height of 5'10 is short. Then you've got this supposed sliding scale of benefits going up to about 6'4, so you have short men just wanting to be average, and then average men feel inferior compared to the tall guys who are deemed to have all the success. Obviously, it's worse for the genuinely short guy, but my point is that 'short' seems to be changing -- not physically, but in the eyes of this generation.

Acceptance is a cope. How you treat yourself doesn't effect how others will treat you. Confidence is definitely important and I dont deny that, but the truth is that being short is a detriment and being ugly is a detriment too. You can "accept" it in the sense that you understand it is what it is, and decide to live life as best as you can even with these detriments, but that is by definition a cope.

But surely to 'cope' implies that it's affecting you in the first place. My point is, that there are plenty of people who seem to not have their height affect them even if they're short; they're confident enough in themselves that whilst they recognize they're short, it isn't the all-consuming, life-ruining thing that it is for many of us here. So they're not coping, their mindset is different -- their assessment of reality is different. If this is as objective as we say, why aren't all short men experiencing horrible lives because of it?

I don't deny it's objective in the sense that being taller is an undeniably positive characteristic, but I don't really think the absolute objective reality is that if you're short, you have a worse life and are therefore 'coping' with that reality. If this is the case, then surely it's all more mindset than it is about the physical issue.

Most Orthopedic surgeons do not support limb lengthening for cosmetic purposes for reasons that do not matter. I don't care, nobody else cares, their own beliefs are just their own. Again, their reasoning why honestly doesn't matter. Its irrelevant. Most Orthopedic surgeons can't even do the procedure LOL. Being able to stick a nail into someone's femur does not mean they have the knowledge or skill to prevent complications. Limb lengthening is a specialty within a specialty(limb lengthening, deformity correction, etc)

Well, I'm talking about surgeons who are actually very experienced with using intramedullary rods -- I mean, that's many orthopedic surgeons bread-and-butter as medical professionals who deal with trauma and deformity correction. Is that really irrelevant? I don't think it would be in any other area of medicine. There are barely any doctors who do this cosmetically, and the consensus within the orthopedic community -- the experts -- is that this is pretty much unanimously a bad idea. That's not nothing, surely. I don't necessarily think that just because it can be done safely, it's a given that it's morally acceptable. I'm not saying it isn't, but I think the whole issue of limb lengthening is much more of a gray area than people claim to admit.

"Focus their entire lives on getting plastic surgery" is massively exaggerated. Limb Lengthening is the most time-intensive cosmetic procedure you can get and the most expensive. Even double jaw surgery is a faster recovery and cheaper. A rhinoplasty is cheap, and you recover from it fast. The halo effect is real. Once you get Limb lengthening, the height is with you forever. You'll never shrink except for your spine, which affects tall people too.

I agree, but that's not what I was talking about. I was using it as an example to ask where this line of thinking ends. If it was well within sanity to fix any objective flaw, where do you draw the line? Was Michael Jackson justified in his decision to alter his face how he did? You could say that, given the prevalence of racism and the skew of Western beauty standards, he was objectively in the right mind to make himself as caucasian as possible.

Exactly. The problem can be fixed! Patient satisfaction rates are some of the highest when compared to most other surgical procedures. The #1 thing is picking a good surgeon. You need a good surgeon, which luckily are easy to find...just pricey.

#1 factor is your surgeon. You need a good surgeon. If you pick a good surgeon, complications aren't a problem. 1) A good surgeon will prevent them from happening in the first place 2) A good surgeon can fix any complications that arise. Even "chance" complications like infections can be solved with a round of antibiotics(or using internals which reduce the risk). Equinus is because your surgeon let you over lengthen, fibula migration is because your surgeon didn't place syndesmotic screws, non-union is because your surgeon didn't closely watch your progress with regular x-rays. Axial deviations are because your surgeon didn't properly implant the nail. The list goes on and on. The one thing that I will concede is embolisms. They are very rare, but it's possible. But even those the risk can be reduced by 1) doing quad surgeries spread apart 2) venting prior to reaming 3) blood thinners

Are infections always solved by antibiotics, though? The theoretical risk of amputation is a tough pill to swallow.

Seem to be there are not so many guys here who are that tall, i guess thats because is statistically weird to be that height for a guy, but anywhat, i would love to hear from them about how much reaching the 5'5 to 5'7 height range really change their experiences in life

your comment really helped and the comment above is right as well to some degree, alot of things i could have done have been weighed out by my height which i agree is true but i have been letting my height mess with my head for so long , only thing that was holding me back is my girlfriend but shes gone now , i went on a drug binge after i found out and lost myself. wasted so much opportunities financially. i changed alot of peoples lives that they appreciate me for , all my 20 employees that respect me alot which is crazy that i just turned 19 but i still cant love myself despite how far i came with everything finance wise, and the starting point is my height. I tried therapy and all it did was calm me down temporarily, the most thing that bothers me is that im incapable of talking about this to my social circle ill just lost respect and be looked down on as the insecure nerd. I tried talking to my dad about it but he just doesnt get it. it just clams me a bit that theres people that a-knowledge my issue and are giving tips to fix it wether its mentally or going through the surgery

Well with something like this in my opinion it's best not to expect most people in the regular social circles to understand. Unfortunately some people do take advantage of other peoples vulnerabilities and insecurities, even if it is "just" looking down on them for it. Just one or few close friends are what's needed. I unfortunately didn't even have that much with my issues. I eventually had a therapist who became more like a mentor and close friend, he was at many points the only one I could talk to and it was enough to help me then. Therapists can vary as much as your friends. Some get it, some don't. In the end it all comes down to ourselves.

But while I don't advice talking about this to just everyone out there, it's also not necessary to be afraid of losing people's respect. Sometimes it's even good to lose your "respectability" in the eyes of other people just to realise that it never mattered, so that we don't have to be afraid of losing anything. In the end someone who isn't affected by whether people respect you or not, commands more respect. It comes from self-respect. Someone who deeply cares if people respect them or not, in the sense that if people don't respect them they will feel less about themselves... Then your self-esteem and self-respect are attached to other people's view about you instead of being rooted within.

Anyway, I think it's good you have a goal to work on yourself and then possibly follow up with the surgery. Keep us posted

Dude great to hear you're taking the mental aspect seriously. It will get better. And if and when you decide to get the leg lengthening down the line, you'll definitely be happy you have worked on yourself before. I even remember some older leg lengthening diary on this forum where the dude noticed that there are two types of people in the leg lengthening facility he was in. Those who were already happy and successful in their lives and they seemed to be the ones who went on with improved lives after recovering from the surgery. They're the ones who actually enjoyed benefits of the surgery. Then there is the other group who is perpetually unhappy in their lives, always something to fix. They do the surgery and they don't get any more attention from women, no more tinder matches, no nothing. This is consistent data from both people's own experiences and diaries and from research.

Dude what you are describing makes me think you are a really stand up guy. At young age you have done good things for your family, you have worked hard, achieved something and you are self-aware. Your unhappiness with yourself, the feeling of not being enough etc is just one more thing on your path you wil lovercome. You will get far in life and you deserve happiness. I'm really glad you are taking the mental aspect seriously now, because there is nothing in that regard that can hold you back in the long run. You've already shown you are a guy who faces issues and challenges head on. Keep up the good work, and then whether you'll be the 6' tall guy in the future or not (which you might be of course), you'll be living your best life in either scenario.

Your long term girlfriend cheating on you with a tall guy, that's gonna get into your head, I get that. It does remind me of a street interview video, one of those asking strangers "Does height matter?". And a 5'7 guy there was saying it doesn't matter to him at all. He had a girlfiend of a NBA player cheat on the dude with him. So the reverse can happen too. Imagine how the NBA player might have felt when his girlfriend chose a below average height person to cheat with lol.

your comment really helped and the comment above is right as well to some degree, alot of things i could have done have been weighed out by my height which i agree is true but i have been letting my height mess with my head for so long , only thing that was holding me back is my girlfriend but shes gone now , i went on a drug binge after i found out and lost myself. wasted so much opportunities financially. i changed alot of peoples lives that they appreciate me for , all my 20 employees that respect me alot which is crazy that i just turned 19 but i still cant love myself despite how far i came with everything finance wise, and the starting point is my height. I tried therapy and all it did was calm me down temporarily, the most thing that bothers me is that im incapable of talking about this to my social circle ill just lost respect and be looked down on as the insecure nerd. I tried talking to my dad about it but he just doesnt get it. it just clams me a bit that theres people that a-knowledge my issue and are giving tips to fix it wether its mentally or going through the surgery