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[rickybobby]

SO JUST GOT A MESSAGE SAYING THAT THE DR. LEE MALFUCTIONS ARE DUE TO SLOW RATE OF LENGTHENING.

MY QUESTION IS HOW WOULD A DOCTOR GUAGE HOW FAST OR SLOW TO LENGTHEN TO FIGHT OFF EARLY UNION OR NONUNION??

ISN'T 1 MM PER DAY STANDARD FOR FEMURS? .33 (3 TIMES A DAY) HOW SOON WILL YOU GET A XRAY AFTER THE SURGERY TO MAKE SURE YOUR NOT CONSOLIDATING TO QUICKLY OR IF YOU HAVE NON UNION AND YOU HAVE TO SLOW IT DOWN??

THIS IS A DELICATE BALANCE TO AVOID SURGERY AGAIN TO BREAK THE BONE OR TO COMPLETELY END YOUR LL JOURNEY DUE INATTENTION OF THE PATIENT.

[KiloKAHN]

Oh no, not all caps again.

[Cooper]

Ricky,
I am deeply concern on nail malfunction, premature consolidation or breaking. The best bet would be play safe. Not weighing too much I.e do not walk, you can stand only. Always use walker or support.

Dr.b and I have agreed to do x-rays quite frequently to observe the rate of consolidation so we can manage the rate of distraction. I will be requesting x-rays more often. Any helpful tips will be appreciated.

Thanks

[amatan]

SO JUST GOT A MESSAGE SAYING THAT THE DR. LEE MALFUCTIONS ARE DUE TO SLOW RATE OF LENGTHENING.

MY QUESTION IS HOW WOULD A DOCTOR GUAGE HOW FAST OR SLOW TO LENGTHEN TO FIGHT OFF EARLY UNION OR NONUNION??

ISN'T 1 MM PER DAY STANDARD FOR FEMURS? .33 (3 TIMES A DAY) HOW SOON WILL YOU GET A XRAY AFTER THE SURGERY TO MAKE SURE YOUR NOT CONSOLIDATING TO QUICKLY OR IF YOU HAVE NON UNION AND YOU HAVE TO SLOW IT DOWN??

THIS IS A DELICATE BALANCE TO AVOID SURGERY AGAIN TO BREAK THE BONE OR TO COMPLETELY END YOUR LL JOURNEY DUE INATTENTION OF THE PATIENT.

Did you even bother to read the diaries at all?  Dr. had us lengthening at extremely fast rates once he discovered we weren't getting enough per lengthening.  Anyone who says this was Dr. Lee's fault is simply wrong. 

[rickybobby]

This was amatan's message

the malfunctions here were not real malfunctions - my right leg just formed its callus way too fast and what happened with Wolverine (the other patient who had lengthening trouble) was not the device's fault.  You should go ahead and use it.

so if its not the devices fault, whos fault is it for not picking up that your consolidating too quickly?

[Cooper]

Premature consolidation is nothing new. Dr. M patient had at 5cm. I am sure Paley have some over the pool of thousands of patient. Dr. Lee is very competent surgeon. Done over 500 CLL, with good results. He is in conservative side of lengthening less than 8cm which I really like.

[ChrisIsaak]

It's no one's fault. Similar to amatan, my left callus started forming too early (at 6 cm) and I had to stop lengthening my right leg at 7 cm. Currently I'm testing the nail and we'll see if I can lower the discrepancy for a bit. My advice is, instead of seeing the doctor every two weeks, see him weekly instead - if possible. I did most of my lengthening at 1,4-1,5 mm daily. I went fast but the bone still showed early signs of consolidation. Could I have gone faster, maybe at 2 mm per day? I don't think so - the nerves and muscles need to adapt too, and everything is set in a delicate balance. Dr.Lee is far from incompetent, he seems to be a great, caring doctor. You can't expect everything to go well all the time when you do something like LL. I'm absolutely sure similar things happen everywhere, with every doctor.

[Cooper]

Chris, How often did you take x-ray and What you recommend? Sorry to hear premature and I have to be careful, somehow I think I will have good callus formation as well. I am very active and one of the fast player and high agility.

[ChrisIsaak]

Chris, How often did you take x-ray and What you recommend? Sorry to hear premature and I have to be careful, somehow I think I will have good callus formation as well. I am very active and one of the fast player and high agility.

Every two weeks, but x-rays don't show the exact amount of lengthening, they only give an estimate, and suggest the rate of bone formation for the doctor to determine the speed of lengthening. Perhaps I should have convinced my doctor and his assistants to take Tomography scans more often, which would give us the exact amount of lengthening, but they weren't very fond of the idea since they didn't want me to get too much radiation. Sometime during my lengthening, my nerves started to hurt very bad, my tibiae felt paralysed and I called my doctor to tell him that I was slowing down a bit. Perhaps I shouldn't have, because at our next meeting, he urged me to speed up again to 1,4 mm/day.

If I could start LL all over again, I would meet the doctor every week at the expense of paying for additional x-ray scans. Meeting the doctor every two weeks is a standard as far as I've seen (in other places as well) but I wouldn't risk it.

[Cooper]

Yep definitely heed to your opinion. I will be seeing him every week. We agreed on taking x-ray more often. I might ask him TG as well. Thanks for the input, this is why the forum is so great and important. I can ask question with the REAL patient and learn

[Medium Drink Of Water]

I wouldn't put too much blame on any doctor or device for premature consolidation.  Even with 1500+ cases and the tried-and-true Ilizarov frame, we had a couple of people who had to get their bones re-broken in Beijing.

[amatan]

Sorry, I misspoke in my message to you - I meant to say the problems were not due the device's fault in the sense that the devices didn't MALFUNCTION.  If they failed to lengthen properly it was because they were too weak force wise to lengthen against my callus and wolverine's muscles, which is still a problem with the device, just not ours in particular.