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[KiloKAHN]

People have gone to Dr Guichet only to be told that they need more flexibility or muscle mass before he will do their surgery (otherwise they can only lengthen a very small amount) and other doctors have said that pre-op training has little to no effect on the amount you can distract. What do you think of Dr Guichet's pre-op training requirement before he will perform surgery on you? Do you agree that pre-op training should be a requirement and has a significant effect on the final result? Or do you agree with the surgeons who say pre-op training is not necessary on the amount you can distract and final result?

[Uppland]

The only real medical knowledge I got is from biology clas in school, always feel uncertain when one doctor disagrees with another. It's not easy being a cosmetic patient and leg lengthening is probably the most brutal one there is. I take the risks very seriously and never leave a dilemma like this unanswered, what I usually arrive at is that I would rather be safe than sorry. If Dr. Guichet recommends pre-op training and other doctors say it doesn't matter, then I'm going to do it the best I can.

[Medium Drink Of Water]

Has he even given an explanation of why he requires it?  The only benefit I can think of is a faster recovery, but that might even be canceled out entirely by the time you have to spend preparing.  I didn't do exercise before LL or PT during it, and I was able to make a full recovery.  I don't think any of the lingering issues I have were caused by lack of hard work before or during LL.

[Sean Connery]

Honestly I think Dr. Guichet has that requirement because he has a deal with the people who run the training program and it's a way for them to get guaranteed money too. I've read of other doctors saying having more muscle can be beneficial but Dr. Guichet is the only doctor I know of that absolutely requires you to get your physical fitness training done by specific people. I haven't heard of any cosmetic case yet where he decides your level of fitness is acceptable to proceed with surgery right away. I bet if an olympic athlete went to him he would still say they aren't flexible or strong enough.

[Overdozer]

It's a complete nonsense, I view it as a marketing trick. Increased muscle mass will mean increased load on the nails, thus higher chance of them breaking. Bigger muscles should also mean higher risk of compartment syndrome. You'll also lose all of your 'muscle mass' in the first month. Working on your flexibility won't hurt however, IF it's limited in the first place.

[KiloKAHN]

The only real medical knowledge I got is from biology clas in school, always feel uncertain when one doctor disagrees with another. It's not easy being a cosmetic patient and leg lengthening is probably the most brutal one there is.

It definitely is a little unnerving when doctors disagree with each other, especially if they're both qualified/internationally recognized. I had a hell of a time choosing my surgeon after my consultations. I was deciding between Dr Parihar and Dr Shah and although they were both fellows of Dr Paley years ago, they had completely different views on the necessity of doing releases. Dr Shah said you need to release the fascia and the nerves with tibia lengthening otherwise you'd face many problems and Dr Parihar told me that he would absolutely not release the fascia and nerves because it's not necessary and that every procedure has it's side effects, which he'd want to avoid. Being a medical laymen, I had no idea who I should agree with and it took me a few days to finally decide. For those without any orthopedic background, it's probably impossible to figure out if an orthopedic doctor is totally bs-ing you.

[programdude]

Seems silly, not that flexibility or exercise is bad, but just that stretching on your own and being fit in general is good enough.

[YellowSpike]

I went through the whole pre-op training program. I have mixed feelings about it. It annoys me that it cost me a month and quite a bit more money to do, but I think I can see how it may help recovery (though, like MDoW said, the month you have to train kinda cancels that out anyway). My legs were pretty strong, but the Cybex test revealed that I actually needed more improvement than I thought. I took it very seriously, and really increased my leg strength and lowered my total percent body fat even more to like 11% or something (wonder what it is now...lol). Before LL, even though I was a gym rat, I never worked out my legs much because they were naturally muscular (I focused on arms/chest for aesthetics, and just glutes for my legs). My legs were, in turn, deceivingly weak.

I think the concept is that, all doctors agree we quickly lose tons of muscle mass after LL (since we're just mostly sitting around). Dr G I think is of the opinion that, if you can increase your muscle mass to, say, 130% of what you used to be, and then you lose 60%, you'll be at 70% of your ORIGINAL capacity, as opposed to just 40% of your original capacity. And this can help with weight-bearing after you're done lengthening. I think it's helping me now, even though I still have pain (but that's mostly from tightness and stretching the muscles and such).