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[robin433]

Hi everyone,

I'm 19 years old young man, who comes from a Nothern European country. Current height: 170cm, growth has completely stopped when I was around 14 y.o. probably beacause I almost didn't eat any meat and was vegeterian until this age, because of the taste, and my parents didn't really care about that.
Anyways, I've informed myself about a potential limb lenghtening surgery, and there is way too much information. I'm getting lost with all recommendations I can see 

So here are my goals and conditions: 
0) Height goal: 180cm, that means gaining around 10cm, more or less. So LL on tibias and femurs simultanously and with internal methods.
1) Now 10 to maximum 14 study-free weeks (around 100 days), and ability to leave my country depsite the coronavirus epidemics.
2) Absolutely need to be able to recover my mobility (without crutches or stuff) at the end of August/Beginning of September
3) Expenses don't really matter, the most important thing is quality, surgical experience and that the doctor fulfills theses conditions. Nevertheless, it would be great to spend less than 60k-70k$
(4) It would be also great if the clinic or surgeon could give any financial guarantee in case of an accidental failure of the surgery. That's a sign of trustworthiness

Now, the first website I found was Dr.Guichet's and Wannabetaller (Istanbul). Internal devices seem suited to what I've said just above, so STRYDE or PRECISE. However, Dr.Guichet is way too expensive and I don't really know if I can trust the Turkish specialists. Also, Dr. Jamal Abu Nemer/Bornex in Kyiv, but he's as expensive as Guichet.
So here's a list of clinics, I've recently contacted and which have answered to my questions:
1) legslengthen.com , Dr.Mirzoyan, Yerevan/Armenia
2) wannabetaller.com , (?), Istanbul/Turkey
3) ladisten.com, Dr.Velkich, Kyiv/Ukraine
4) clinicanomer1, Dr. Bagirov, Moscow/Russia
... (to be completed)

I'm waiting for your reviews, advices for good orthopædic surgeons and testimonies
Do not hesistate to post!

[becometall_tr]

Firstly, at this early age of 19, you should be more picky and careful with making a decision of whether having limb lengthening surgery or not. I would recommend making a more careful personal evaluation of your height obsession, such as "has this dysphoria of height has increased in the past 2 years", "what will i do if i experience a major complication", and on and on. You should also keep your expectations of height increase results minimum.

Moreover, simultaneous femur and tibia surgery doesn’t sound like a good idea. It can multiply the levels of pain and increase the difficulty of risk management. It may be a safer decision to have one surgery at a time.

Among these options, 1, 3 and 4 only apply fully external Ilizarov and the likes of it, and the prices don’t seem to be justified for a fully external method. Wannabetaller has a larger array of different surgery methods to choose with better prices (you can spend the remainder of your money for physiotherapy), as well as there are more images and videos of limb lengthening patients by them.

Here is one video patient diary published recently (this is by far one of the most detailed and informative patient diaries I have seen):

[Ostentician]

The pain from both segments being lengthened will be absolutely immense. If you want a quick recovery, I'd advise you to first do one segment and do the other at a later date. Hell, maybe you'll even be satisfied with being 175 once you lengthen one segment and won't go for the other.

In addition, complication risks increase immensely if you do the surgery more than once, regardless of if your in the "safe" threshold or not. You might want to just do one surgery that increases by 6-7 cm instead of doing two but that's your choice. Two surgeries will also absolutely decrease your athletic ability. One surgery already reduces you to around 90% of your previous athletic ability, even after therapy and exercise. And that's if you lengthen in the safe length and work after. Considering this, both segments might decrease your mobility immensely, resulting in you having the athletic ability of a 60 year old at age 19.

On the topic of surgeons, I'm not familiar but I do have a general idea about Turkish surgeons, as I've looked into them because they seem to be exceedingly cheap compared to surgeons from other countries. They seem to have good enough credentials, but they engage in shady business practices like hopping from leg lengthening advertisement service to advertisement service and there was even a guy posting here a while back saying that a Turkish doctor nearly crippled him due to malpractice. Approach with caution.

Finally, and this is going to be a bit of a kick in the teeth, 180 is not a "tall" height. I am 181 cm tall. I do not feel "tall" when walking around in the streets and I live in a Northern European country like you. I understand that it might not be a desire to be "tall", but rather a desire to be "taller" but that doesn't change the fact that you might be disappointed with your results, especially after such an extreme amount of surgeries. I'd advise you to introspect and see who you are doing this surgery for. Are you doing this for yourself? Are you trying to impress someone, maybe girls? The benefits for being "tall" start around 6 foot/ 182.7 cm. (higher salary, being found more "attractive" by shallow western women etc) so if you do manage do get this surgery done, you won't even really be benefiting from it from a statistical standpoint. I'm sorry if this came off as harsh but most of it is just objective facts and observation.

Good luck on your leg lengthening journey.

[Medium Drink Of Water]

LL takes longer and costs more than you hope, so it's necessary for you to lower your expectations.  Your timetable and budget are for one surgery with a first world doctor.  Reducing your standard of care to afford two surgeries means more time.  It took me 5 months to do 7.5 cm in China, and I went home in a wheelchair, barely able to use a walker around the house.

8 cm on either tibia or femurs with Dr. Guichet would give you a good result.  I'm glad you brought him up, because he is on record saying quadrilateral lengthening is "stupid" and that he'd never do it on his patients.  Think about that before you go to a worse doctor than him to get quadrilateral lengthening.

[KiloKAHN]

Don't do any lengthening if you have any sort of deadline you need to keep (i.e. your #1 and #2 goals and conditions). You never know what complication you can run into or how your body will respond and could very well be out of commission for over a year if something goes very wrong.

[robin433]

The pain from both segments being lengthened will be absolutely immense. If you want a quick recovery, I'd advise you to first do one segment and do the other at a later date. Hell, maybe you'll even be satisfied with being 175 once you lengthen one segment and won't go for the other.

In addition, complication risks increase immensely if you do the surgery more than once, regardless of if your in the "safe" threshold or not. You might want to just do one surgery that increases by 6-7 cm instead of doing two but that's your choice. Two surgeries will also absolutely decrease your athletic ability. One surgery already reduces you to around 90% of your previous athletic ability, even after therapy and exercise. And that's if you lengthen in the safe length and work after. Considering this, both segments might decrease your mobility immensely, resulting in you having the athletic ability of a 60 year old at age 19.

On the topic of surgeons, I'm not familiar but I do have a general idea about Turkish surgeons, as I've looked into them because they seem to be exceedingly cheap compared to surgeons from other countries. They seem to have good enough credentials, but they engage in shady business practices like hopping from leg lengthening advertisement service to advertisement service and there was even a guy posting here a while back saying that a Turkish doctor nearly crippled him due to malpractice. Approach with caution.

Finally, and this is going to be a bit of a kick in the teeth, 180 is not a "tall" height. I am 181 cm tall. I do not feel "tall" when walking around in the streets and I live in a Northern European country like you. I understand that it might not be a desire to be "tall", but rather a desire to be "taller" but that doesn't change the fact that you might be disappointed with your results, especially after such an extreme amount of surgeries. I'd advise you to introspect and see who you are doing this surgery for. Are you doing this for yourself? Are you trying to impress someone, maybe girls? The benefits for being "tall" start around 6 foot/ 182.7 cm. (higher salary, being found more "attractive" by shallow western women etc) so if you do manage do get this surgery done, you won't even really be benefiting from it from a statistical standpoint. I'm sorry if this came off as harsh but most of it is just objective facts and observation.

Good luck on your leg lengthening journey.

I absolutely agree with what you've just said. My goal isn't to get ''tall'' but only to normalize my height, regarding the average male height of my age range. It would mean removing the disadvantages of being a «dwarf» which is a already an enormous step.
Concerning lengthening tibias and femurs at the same moment to get around 10cm, I don't understand the position of Dr.Guichet. Doesn't he say, that it's better to do everything in one single operation?

Thanks !

[robin433]

Could anyone give me some info on the quality of Eastern-European/Russian surgeons? I've mentioned two of them in my initial post.
It seems quite safe to get operated there, because that's where the Ilizarov methods have been invented. Futhermore, the princing is about 30% less expensive than in Western Europe. (Btw, I do speak Russian at a good level)

[frenchie]

I absolutely agree with what you've just said. My goal isn't to get ''tall'' but only to normalize my height, regarding the average male height of my age range. It would mean removing the disadvantages of being a «dwarf» which is a already an enormous step.
Concerning lengthening tibias and femurs at the same moment to get around 10cm, I don't understand the position of Dr.Guichet. Doesn't he say, that it's better to do everything in one single operation?

Thanks !

Guichet has had several failed attempts at tibial lengthening using his archaic barbaric nail. Twisting the lower leg is extremely difficult and painful. He is fully aware of this limitation and hence recommends his patients to do all lengthening in femurs. He even goes as far as saying that having extremely long femurs is aesthetic. You will never see Guichet lengthening tibias. He will never admit his nail's shortcomings and will instead recommend going 10-15cm in the femurs but in two stages.

[KiloKAHN]

Could anyone give me some info on the quality of Eastern-European/Russian surgeons? I've mentioned two of them in my initial post.
It seems quite safe to get operated there, because that's where the Ilizarov methods have been invented. Futhermore, the princing is about 30% less expensive than in Western Europe. (Btw, I do speak Russian at a good level)

Like other countries, it depends on the surgeon. When I was lengthening with Dr Parihar, he told me (without naming them) that there were Russian surgeons who'd make outrageous claims or have terrible patient results, but they believed that they were experts or the results were flawless simply by virtue of them being Russian. It's therefore possible you could end up with a false sense of security doing the surgery in Russia and end up getting messed up by a quack.

Base your choice on a combination of factors, not simply the geographic location.

[Medium Drink Of Water]

Could anyone give me some info on the quality of Eastern-European/Russian surgeons? I've mentioned two of them in my initial post.
It seems quite safe to get operated there, because that's where the Ilizarov methods have been invented. Futhermore, the princing is about 30% less expensive than in Western Europe. (Btw, I do speak Russian at a good level)

Dr. Mitkovic in Serbia seemed like a good doctor and a good person when I met him in 2007.  I heard he might be offering lengthening with imported internal nails as opposed to his own designs which ended up not being viable due to manufacturing issues.  The issue there is resources: getting the staff and the equipment he needs hasn't always been possible.

[Futureller]

You're 19 you're still a child.  I'm not trying to be harsh but you said finances don't matter and you want the best of the best, but then you say that you ideally want to spend 60-70k...on lengthening 2 segments....you see how that doesn't make sense do you? If you want the best of the best and 2 segmesnts you're more likely to spend around 180k than 60-70k....you seem like you're jumping into this.  It's never good to jump into anything, you need to do your research and due diligence.  Take it from someone who's older and a little more experienced in life choices.  I say this with love and not to be a critical hard ass or anything.  I'm with you and support your surgery 110% but step back and do your research and make sure you got the proper time and means to pull it off.  Life has to come first after all.

Im 171cm so I'm right there with you.  Personally I would shoot for 8cm on femurs.  That way you're at least not feeling like a dwarf anymore.  You will save a lot of time and money and its a lot more realistic doing 1 segment.  And I can assume 2 segments is very taxing on the body and who knows how well you will recover from 2 segments...

Also with this virus scare being pushed all over the media nothing can be planned right now.  I know it sucks.  A lot of us on these forums are being screwed over in that sense.  I'm in the same boat as you brother.  I'm out of work now and can't even put aside money right now towards my surgery which i planned on doing next august.  We all gotta wait a couple months and see whats going to develop in the world stage. 

[Cpl2012]

You are 19, i guess still can grow couple more cm. I think you should just do 8 cm femur. Some of dr Donghoon in korea can lengthen the same amount with tibia. 2 segments too much money and time. Think carefully !!! You are still can grow.

[10cmOnTibiaOrGTFO]

how much money for drr goon? he can do cross lenghtening?