I'm glad my diary was useful for you @li2028 and @ThirdSpace. I hope everything goes well if you decide to go through this
As for the questions:
Thank you for sharing!
1) Do you still wear lifts?
2) How has your experience with women changed?
3) Did anyone notice?
4) Would you ever go back for tibias?
5) What advice would you have, apart from the drug interactions, for someone going for femurs?
6) Any thoughts on the new weight-bearing nail?
Thanks again - your journey really inspired me.
- No, it used to hurt my calves after a while. My goal was not to be considered tall, just not to be considered too short.
- Hahaha sorry to break to you dude, but short straight men are not the only ones with height issues. My experience with relating to people I feel attracted to did change, yes (and once in a while women hit on me and I make out for fun)
- Yes. No one from the Bay Area, where I had been using lifts since I moved there. But my school and university friends from Brazil did notice. Some of them knew because I told them, some of them just were straightforward like "oh my God, you are taller". But they couldn't figure out what I did.
- Honestly? Yes. Not now that there has been a recall for the Precice Stryde (the 3rd Precice generation), as I did my femurs with the 2nd generation and being strained to a wheelchair demands a lot of support. I don't want to be unproportional though, so I'd restart doing my research on proportions.
- A few tips:
a. Don't be crazy to think that 1 month and a half away from work is enough for you to go back to work. That's what some doctors will tell you to convince you to do the surgery. It was a hassle having my mom drive me to work as I didn't think things through and she had to make an effort of folding my wheelchair, putting it on the trunk of the car, then taking it away at my workplace and doing the same thing when picking me up. I realized months later that I could had taken a much longer break from work.
b. Try to stay as long as possible in the city you do the surgery as the surgeon will often refer you to PTs that know what they are doing and you will need a lot of physical therapy. Also, moving away means you'll have to find yourself a place to do the x-rays every few weeks and send them to your doctor to know if you should increase or decrease the speed of the lengthening.
c. Have support from someone you trust that can stay with you for at least 3 months (maybe less with the new method that allows you to be more independent).
d. The first 1 to 2 weeks are terrible. You'll have constipation, you'll face a lot of pain, and your legs will be extremely swollen. That's normal. - My surgery was in 2018, a year before the new weight-bearing nail came out. From recent research, I saw there has been a recall on it. Maybe you know better. But they are developing a new nail called Precice Max which should come out in April this year. I wouldn't trust any doctor using Precice Stryde. Here's a summary you can easily find on Google: "In February 2021, NuVasive Specialized Orthopedics voluntarily recalled its Precice Stryde, Precice Plate, and Precice Bone Transport systems from the U.S. market due to biocompatibility concerns. The recall was issued after some patients experienced pain and small bony abnormalities between the telescoping nail segments. The bony abnormalities were usually small erosions on the inner bone around the nail segment. The FDA has expressed concerns about both stainless steel and titanium-based Precice devices."
Hope that helps!