Limb Lengthening Forum
Limb Lengthening Surgery => Limb Lengthening Discussions => Topic started by: marathonrunner on April 19, 2020, 07:07:42 PM
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For those that have done tibia LL, did anyone experience callus growth only on the back half of the bone (lateral view)?
My callus growth seems uneven. Looking at my tibia bones from the front view it looks fine, the callus growth seems quite even from left to right.
But looking at the tibia bone laterally I’ve noticed that my bone growth is concentrated near the back of my tibia and is quite sparse near the front.
Is this normal? Or is my bone growth weird..
I took x rays but the hospital hasn’t provided them yet, I will upload once I’ve got them.
But basically looking at my bone from the side, it looks like near the shin area there is much less growth (theres kind of some empty space) and most of the bone growth is concentrated near the back. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to try to get the front part to grow more?
BMAC? Ultrasound? Lasers? Magnetic machine? I’m walking already and putting pressure on my legs to grow the bones but I don’t know how to get the front to grow as well as the back is growing.
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Need to provide more details bud, when was the consolidation finished ? If there is callus growth it will continue, its just a long and slow process.
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Hi bro,
I have exactly same as u in my right leg only callus in the back of tibia and the other leg is fully callus and some doctor told me this is quite normal because alot of muscle in the back to supply blood to the bone, I will wait 3 month if there is no improvement I will do BMAC.
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That is a completely normal finding, per my doctor's saying.
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I see thanks everyone, there is still callus growth. The consolidation is not finished.
I’m just wondering if there was a way to grow the front of the bone as well as the back.
Arabic Man, who’s your doctor? Can I ask how much BMAC is with yours?
Athens, who’s your doctor?
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Dr. Giotikas noticed the same thing happen to my bones, and he said it usually starts from the back.
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BMAC in my country “ between 4000 - 5000 $
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It is very normal for bone at the back of the tibia (posterior) to grow better and faster than bone on the front side (anterior).
This occurs because people have much more tissue on the posterior side of the tibia--your entire calf muscle is behind the bone but almost no tissue exists on the front side of the bone. More tissue means more bone-growing nutrients are present; hence, more bone growth.
So long as a little line of hard bone (white line or dotted line on x-ray) grows to connect the ends of each bone; then, the rest of the bone will usually fill-in over time.
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I see I see. I hope it does fill in in the front.
Especially my left leg, the front part looks quite empty compared to the back.
I did have BMAC done in the left leg 2x and right leg 1x, but I have a feeling some of the BMAC drifted to my fibula instead of staying in my tibia, as you can see my fibula is quite large in the left leg.
And I did have to get the stryde taken out of my left leg due to infection and poor installation. So I don't know if the callus growth was affected by new nail insertion.
Since the callus is soft bone and it seems to be malleable, is it possible to massage the back of my left calf, like really massage it hard to try to push the callus forward? Same with my left fibula, that bone looks like its going to be a big lump lol.. is it possible to "massage" it into place?
Here are my x rays.
(https://i.imgur.com/0SCDG2u.jpg?3)
(https://i.imgur.com/fxQuIM4.jpg?2)
(https://i.imgur.com/LuDMk7W.jpg?1)
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yes my callus was non-existant in the front and now its as good as the back after a year. its catches up but very slowly. thats because there is very poor blood supply at the front compared to back. there is nothing u can do about it and there is no need. just let consolidation do its job.
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yes my callus was non-existant in the front and now its as good as the back after a year. its catches up but very slowly. thats because there is very poor blood supply at the front compared to back. there is nothing u can do about it and there is no need. just let consolidation do its job.
Hi bro,
You mean after a year from stop lengthening ?
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X-rays look great. I had something similar. It'll reshape itself in due time
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Hi bro,
You mean after a year from stop lengthening ?
year after surgery
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I see thanks everyone for the input
Did any of you get any external help like ultrasound or BMAC or lasers and did any of those external methods help?
I know BMAC helps since it is basically moving bone marrow from one part of the body to another part but what about ultrasound or anything else? Is it worth it to pay for those treatments?
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Hi marathonrunner,
I want to ask u about your left leg I remember before you posted about misaligned left leg and you feel something strange when you walk on left leg, so how is your walking now on left leg is every thing fine ??
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@marathonrunner I did use a bone stimulator during the process. I'd like to think it helped but can't say for sure although consolidation went well. Hope everything works out ok for you
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Thanks cyborg4life, I see, yea I agree, it's hard to know what really contributes in the consolidation process.
@Arabic Man, Oh yea haha long story. I guess let me summarize here in bullet point format, I will try to shorten it but its a long story.
- had surgery for tibia (stryde both legs)
- left leg had infection at the area where they open up the leg to break the bone
- original doctor did another surgery to clean out the leg
- after the cleaning surgery, had weird pains near the bottom shin area of left leg
- original doctor told me nothing is wrong, no way I could have infection, etc etc, this was even after I pointed at my xray at dark areas inside the bone and asked what it was, he kept saying no no that is x ray machine malfunction etc etc.
- went to another LL doctor for second opinion, apparently I had a chronic infection inside the bone (bone marrow area) in the shin area where I felt pain
- the bacteria inside the bone basically was like acid and melted away the bone from the inside out (in that shin area)
- underwent surgery with second LL doctor for external fixator for both legs
- right leg was to pull down my fibula since it was not fixed to my tibia (original doctor drilled a screw into my fibula bone but it was just hanging there, it didnt even connect to the tibua bone), left leg I had to remove the stryde nail and everything else given the infection
- I should point out that besides the misalignment, there were several other surgical errors made by first doctor that the second LL doctor had to fix such as pulling down the fibula, screws inserted the wrong way, the misalignment, infection etc.
- basically my left leg went like this to fix the infection:
remove all metal (stryde nail, everything, etc), put on external fixator, clean out the leg with tons of antibiotics and had some special surgical thing put inside the bone to clean it from the inside out, take antibiotics for a long time, ensure bacteria is gone, take off external fixator, put in regular IM nail, and do a bone graft using my hip bone since I had a hole in my shin area where the bacteria had eaten away the bone from the inside out
I guess moral of the story is, choose your doctor wisely, because yes the infection was the worst thing to happen (I went through months and months of drugs and surgery and all this crazy stuff just to get it back to normal), but even on top of the infection I would say there were so many surgical mistakes that I would have faced problems down the road if I didn't correct those mistakes now.
And on top of all that I had stopped drinking alcohol so my liver could start repairing itself (I'm almost at 1 year alcohol free), but then the infection happened and I was on antibiotics for.. I would say close to 5 months. I started antibiotics after original doctor cleaned out the infection and I kept taking antibiotics because of the pain from the other infection inside my bone. And... I kept taking antibiotics because I had to remove stryde and clean out my legs from the bacteria. So my goal of giving my liver sometime to repair itself went down the drain because antibiotics, especially the strong ones I was taking, are definitely not good for your health when taken for so long.
So yea.. I hope this never happens to anyone else. I'm at 8 months now post surgery and finally on the way towards consolidation. its been a rough journey for sure.
Tons of scars on my left leg as well :[ At least I can tell everyone I got into an accident lol since my left and right leg look so different. If I had the same scars at the same places for both legs people will be skeptical of an "accident" but now since my left leg looks like a horror movie at least I can give some excuse.. :[
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I didnt know your had had so many sugery :-[
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Ah yea.. was under the knife so many times to fix all the problems.
I thought I was saving money.. but in the end I could have flown back to America, went to Paley, stayed in a 5 star hotel, and still saved money compared to how much I spent to fix everything.
I’ve also noticed the hair on my left leg is thicker and longer lol.
Dunno if it’s a side effect of getting my leg operated on so much but in addition to all the scars my left leg is also hairier haha. :P
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The X-ray pics is 8months after LAST sugery??
I think you dont have to worry about your bone growth,I also underwent tibia CLL not stryde ,but external fixtater,and underwent allograft on lengthening area.
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Oh wow. How did your allograft turn out?
How does allograft work if there is hair in the area you want to graft over?
Well my first surgery was August 2019 and my most recent surgery was on Feb 2020.
So including my first surgery I had 5 total surgeries so far (still need 1 more to take the nail out).
Now in May it’ll be 9 months since my first surgery and June would be my 10th month.
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the allograft is now gradually become soft callus
I confirm by x-ray
the implant sugery was 5months before
I think the soft callus is slight and thin I very worry about this
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Ah I see. Sorry I misunderstood. At first I thought allograft was for scars. I see you got it for bone consolidation. I hope the allograft turns out ok for you.