Surprising I wasn't able to find more discussion on this.
It seems most CLL doctors prefer doing bilateral over unilateral too (at least the ones I've e-mailed). However, members like Key decided to do it unilaterally so they could remain working. Being able to go to the bathroom alone and do things more independently from early on seem like added bonuses. Pain and sleep may be more manageable too. I don't know; I'm not a LL vet. There's also the fact that the odds of embolism are smaller the less bones you break. But at the end of the day, it's still going through the same grueling process in two separate, distant occasions. That seems to be the deal breaker for most people.
Does anyone here feel any way about this, one way or another?
lowering the chances of fat embolism by a lot with two surgeries is very important.
I have done a lot of research and would never do bilateral internals. i am most likely going to do external tibias, but if I were to do internals... it would be unilateral surgeries.
hundreds of thousands of people get unilateral internal surgeries for leg length discrepancies or bilateral external tibia surgeries for deformity correction. almost none of these pts get fat embolism
how many cosmetic leg lengthenings does paley do a year? very far off from the sheer # of long bone orthopedic surgeries done for deformity complications or ll discrepancies. Still, the TOP cosmetic ll surgeon in the world and he himself, has had to deal with 4 fat embolism syndromes while doing cosmetic bilateral internal lengthening. the risk is there and so is the potential of death. I would rather go through the surgery process twice than deal with a potential fatal complication.