Interesting. As far as I know, we don't have any public bad case from the main Precice/Stryde doctors in the US yet. Or am I wrong?
Yup, there are
The common problem is patients realize they become victims too late: when they're terrified of their own doctors, get contradictory advice, petrified into doing nothing/complacency and even suffer from stockholm syndrome.
Remember that only a very small percentage of foolhardy or courageous patients actually post their bad experiences here. Imagine if your lengthening goes wrong and other doctors wouldn't touch you with a 10-foot pole, the last thing you'd ever do is post anything negative about your own doctor when you need him the most. And this is when the tables are turned and you are literally stuck between a rock and a very hard place. There is very little recourse. Even sympathy is hard to come by, people who do not understand your decision simply dismiss you as crazy and probably very deserving of comeuppance for your vanity and waste of financial resources.
It is insidious and unfortunately, actual data of real victims are never tabulated officially and transparently. And as many have expressed to me, the disappointment lie beyond physical damage, it completely drains us of our trust in humanity. And that's what scars and traumatizes us most. Our trust and belief systems are essentially violated, and we're left with no voice.
If I had all the money in the world, I would set up a financing company to make cosmetic leg lengthening accessible to the general public because we all realize that short stature neurosis is something that plagued us since puberty (which is usually more than half of our lifetimes). We are the first to admit that it is our head that needs fixing first and foremost.
However, if there were transparent systems in place, widespread application, proper reviews and prerequisites of safety measures as part of the covenants of a financing package, then this procedure would not have to be cloaked in so much controversy. CLL is essentially at the same sensational stage and misguided taboo of breast implant surgeries in the 70s and 80s.
However, orthopaedists have been successfully lengthening limbs non-cosmetically since the 70s with external fixators. So safety methods have been established. It is the rarity and high cost of cosmetic limb lengthening that is corrupting the few players willing to do it, in this industry. Money leads to greed inevitably. And every leg lengthening candidate is a proverbial sitting duck and golden goose for many unscrupulous doctors.
Because imagine the potential each lengthening candidate has when not impeded by their perceived short stature neurosis? I must say, lives are changed usually for the better, forever. Then literally, the stars are within your 'reach'.