Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mariobro]

Hi LLSouthAmerica. 
Could you please tell me if while consolidating you did PT by your own or you paid a physician?
And how old are you?, curious bc Im 52 and planning to do ll with Paley next year

[LAGrowin]

Hi LLSouthAmerica. 
Could you please tell me if while consolidating you did PT by your own or you paid a physician?
And how old are you?, curious bc Im 52 and planning to do ll with Paley next year

Hi Mariobro,

Glad to find another person over 40 looking to do LL.  I am 43 and planning on doing it within the next couple of months.  Wish you the best.   Are you doing femurs or tibias?

I'd like to hear the same from LLSouthAmerica.   I believe lost do pay a therapist during lengthening, but not sure about during the consolidation.

[Mariobro]

I will be doing internal femurs since it seems to be easier and let you go up to 8 cms.

[LAGrowin]

I will be doing internal femurs since it seems to be easier and let you go up to 8 cms.

Right,   I'll be doing the same with Dr. Mahboubian in Los Angeles.  Hoping for 7.6 cm but the full 8 cms would be better.  I am doing lots of stretching in preparation.

Have you already met with Dr. Paley?   What is your starting height?

[farmerjohn1324]

I will be doing internal femurs since it seems to be easier and let you go up to 8 cms.

Are you worried about looking disproportional after adding that much height to your legs?

[Mariobro]

Are you worried about looking disproportional after adding that much height to your legs?

Yes, I met Paley but I did not set an exact date yet, however, most probably I will schedule for late March.
 My starting Hg is 169.7

[LLSouthAmerica]

Hi LLSouthAmerica. 
Could you please tell me if while consolidating you did PT by your own or you paid a physician?
And how old are you?, curious bc Im 52 and planning to do ll with Paley next year

PT during lengthening was included in the surgery price and after that the Dr. forbids us from using a PT not trained by him and I didn't consider it necessary so since returning from Milan around 3 months post op no PT.

[Mariobro]

Thank you for your response. Do you have your rods removed yet?, if so, was it painful?, and how long to recover?

[Mariobro]

And, why you stopped  at 6cm?

[LLSouthAmerica]

Im barely 7 months post op so no removal.

Stopped at 6 / 6.5 cm for safety reasons

[wyrmhero]

Hello LLSouthAmerica  !

I have a question : What's your opinion about your proportions legs - thigh(limb)  after after your gain of 6 centimeters ?


I have this desire to do this operation in the futur but ''the proportions'' is a brake to my motivation.

[LLSouthAmerica]

I feel like my proportions thigh vs legs are even better/ more aesthetically pleasant. I honestly believe that for 1 lengthening with a target gain of no more than 6 - 8 cm for the vast majority of people, proportion should not be an issue. I've seen many people from different background (asians, caucasians, middle-eastern) lengthening these amounts and they look completely normal. Now, I wonder whether I would still look fine if I did 5 cm tibias, perhaps my upper body/lower body would be unbalanced.

As of now however, I look better than before.

[Mariobro]

Hi LLSouthAmerica, thank you for your response, you are an inspiration for me thinking on undergo ll. You mentioned that no PT post op?, not even just some stretching?. And how you are doing on walking, jogging and sports?

[LLSouthAmerica]

Let's see ... stretching yes, walking, cycling and elliptical the same way as during lengthening. What I meant is that after Milan there was no one but me to oversee my training or help me to stretch whatsoever.

[Mariobro]

That is mean you are still on walker/crutches and no walking unaid yet?

[LLSouthAmerica]

What? I stopped using walker 1 week post op and crutches around 2 months post op. Where are you getting this from?

[myloginacct]

I did read most of the thread, and I know a couple of these questions were more or less asked before, but I still wanted to ask them myself. I hope you don't mind.

Why did you choose, or what was your reasoning, going for the femurs specifically?

Are you satisfied with Dr. Guichet's treatment and follow-up?

Was the biggest change after surgery how you see and carry yourself, or do you think the biggest change came from people (you do not know) interacting with you after the height gain?

Did Dr. Guichet give you a max estimate for total recovery before the surgery, and how far are you from that? Or did he state your physical ability would most likely never be the same again?

Thank you.

[LLSouthAmerica]

1) Femur heal faster and tolerate the lengthening better
2) Satisfied yes in my case, though I felt he was lacking in bedside manners with other patients (Unicorn)
3) Definitely how I feel about myself but at the same time people now have stopped seeing me as the " very short" guy.
4) What is total recovery? I assume it would never be the same again and I never asked. Before surgery, I studied a lot about LL and I didn't ask Dr. Guichet many questions I should've. I knew what I was getting into.

[LLSouthAmerica]

Anyways is there someone from Anaheim, California here? Please INBOX

[myloginacct]

4) What is total recovery? I assume it would never be the same again and I never asked. Before surgery, I studied a lot about LL and I didn't ask Dr. Guichet many questions I should've. I knew what I was getting into.

Thanks for the replies, LLSouthAmerica.

What questions do you think you should have asked?

And I know there would be a loss of athletic ability and all, but I'd define total recovery as the moment when you remove the nails and don't need to keep doing x-rays to check on your legs. Was there an estimate for that, or is it going to be lifelong thing? Thanks again.

[Mariobro]

Hi LLSouthAmerica, did TSA give you any problem at the airport? Did they dicover the rods through the body scan?

[myloginacct]

Also, sorry, I probably meant rods in my last post.

[LLSouthAmerica]

Thanks for the replies, LLSouthAmerica.

What questions do you think you should have asked?

And I know there would be a loss of athletic ability and all, but I'd define total recovery as the moment when you remove the nails and don't need to keep doing x-rays to check on your legs. Was there an estimate for that, or is it going to be lifelong thing? Thanks again.

Hi LLSouthAmerica, did TSA give you any problem at the airport? Did they dicover the rods through the body scan?

The doctor told me it was not necessary to do another x-ray around 4 months post-op based on the progress of my healing. I will probably take one just to make sure, though. Nail removal is 1.5 - 2 years post op so I'm still a year behind.

No, no problems. However, since a few months ago I constantly ring at the airports. I only say I have a metallic prosthesis and they let me inside without any other procedures.

[myloginacct]

Thanks again for the patience and replies, LLSouthAmerica. I know some of my questions got asked pretty frequently, but I appreciate you still took to the time to answer them. I've done a fair bit of research since I've started posting here now.

Also, you're the only medical student in the forums that I know of. Not only that, you actually went through LL. Your input is actually invaluable here. I was reading more papers related to CLL by Catagni and others on pubmed and I noticed all the deaths related to LL surgery I am currently aware of happened due to forms of embolism. Being a medical student yourself, what was it that made you think going through the surgery was still worth the risk?

Reading Wikipedia as a layman paints a not particularly bright picture:

Fat emboli occur in almost 90% of all people with severe injuries to bones, although only 10% of these are symptomatic.

Again, though, I'm not a medical student, so I can't tell if this should be read as scarily as it is for me. I'd like my chances of death from embolism (fat, pulmonary or otherwise) to be fractions of zero percent, not possibly whole single percents.

[Limbfan2020]

@ LLSouthAmerica: Which anticoagulants gave Dr. Guichet to you post-surgery?

[LLSouthAmerica]

Hey guys, I've not been active in the forum. Now I'm a doctor, training to be a dermatologist, therefore traumatology is not my forte. I remember that I started weight bearing the day after surgery (I stood up the day of the surgery), and then I only took aspirin (although in a higher dose than the one used in platelet aggregation inhibition).

I had the surgery because I felt I needed it to be at peace with myself. I considered myself to be a low risk patient (mid 20s, not smoker, without significant diseases). However, I was still very much scared of having complications.
@Limbfan2020 @myloginacct

[LLSouthAmerica]

So to summ it up, I had limb lengthening nail removal a week ago with Dr. Giotikas and now I'm recovering from a complication in surgery (nail broke) and had to be removed with aid of retrograde approach.

I'm walking close to normal as of now and I expect a full recovery. My medical adventure has officially and finally ended. Good luck to you all in your path.