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[helloworld]

I am currently doing limb lengthening in Barcelona with Fitbone.


Just around  15 years ago, before September 11, I found out about limb lengthening, and I was determined to do it. But I never had the time and money. Then I sold my company recently, looked limb lengthening up again 2 months ago and yesterday I had my surgery!
As you guys of this forum helped me, I want to give back by sharing my experience.

How I decided
In 2001 I told my family that I was going to do limb lengthening surgery, but they were totally against it and at the time I also did not have the resources.
Thus I waited.
In 2012-2014  I was living in Kiev, Ukraine, and I was seriously considering doing it there. But for several reasons I did not have a good feeling about doing it there.
Then 3 months ago I read again about limb lengthening and found that it was definitely advisable to do internal limb lengthening and it seemed there were 4 internals rods that I could trust:
Precise
Fitbone
Prof. Guichet’s Albianizza
Betzbone
Prices for all these internal methods seemed very high, Prof. Guichet and Prof. Betz quotes me over 55,000 USD.
Then I looked at the fitbone website, to see all the clinics using the fitbone device and decided to  write to several.
The response, and ensuing conversation I had with Dr. Alejandro Monegal from Barcelona lead me to trust him. Also, the prices he quoted were 36,000-38,000 euro, cheaper than what I had seen elsewhere for the internal method.
So 3 weeks ago I flew to Barcelona. I had long conversations with Dr. Alejandro Monegal as well as with several of his patients. As a result I became convinced that:
The surgical procedure is very standard and very little risk
The pain during lengthening is not so bad
Functionality will be recovered almost 100%
Thus I decided to go ahead!
I decided on the option of lengthening both legs at the same time, even though Dr. Monegal prefers to do one after the other. The reason is that if I am going through pain I want this to be intense and short, rather than getting even more pain once the first leg is done.
Doing both at the same time means that I will be bound to the wheel chair for the time of lengthening. As I want to lengthen 5,5 cm and 0,8 mm can be lengthened per day, I will spend over 2 months in the wheelchair.

[apoxyomenos]

Thanks for sharing your experience and good luck for your journey! How old are you by the way? Your starting height?

[helloworld]

Update:
I have a really nice view on the mountains from my hospital room, but I am bored, having to lie in a bed for 3 days without moving my legs! This is because my legs are under anesthesia. That of course also means I feel no pain.

Just had a visit from Dr. Monegal, who confirmed that everything is going according to plan.

After one week I will leave Clinica Diagonal and move to a residency for limb lengthening patients:
http://www.micsantjordi.org/?lang=es

I hope it will be more exciting, as there will be around 5 other limb lengthening patients from all over the world.

[Bander72]

Lgazer salivates to respond to this thread.

[KrP1]

Your history remembers mine a lot . I know that limb lengthening exist since about the same time as you. I wanted to do It So many years ago and i contacted some doctors. But i hadnt got the money.  I was sure that some day i woud be able to do it. Finally i had It done 14 months ago. Good luck with your journey.

[helloworld]

Thanks for your wishes!
14 months ago! Have you recovered 100% already?

[helloworld]

update:
I had the surgery 48 hours ago.
So far not much pain.
However, it is more uncomfortable than I thought: I cannot move my legs, so I cannot go to the toillet nor have a shower. The nurses have ti take my extrements and clean my whole body.

On the positive side:
there is a good Internet connection, so I am able to get lots of work done on my laptop
the food is good
there is a constant flow of nurses coming to visit, doing physical therapy, giving me medicine, food, washing me etc.

Before the surgery I had already bought a Eletro-muscle stimulation training device. This device has been much more effective in the past than regular training, and Fitbone confirmed that I could use it savely. That way I hope to keep my muscle loss to a minum.

Today, I was looking at an additional device, the vibrational plates, as there is some new research showing that it helps accelerate the bone healing.

[KrP1]

I dont think that the vibrational plates are going to be a good idea.  You have to stand up on them  and It has some ipact . Its better to Focus in the lengthening and not So much in muscle loss to be more safe

[helloworld]

THere is research that they help in healings bone fractures, but of course I am not sure when I would be able to use them as I can put full weight on the fitbones.

[helloworld]

TOday, 3 days after surgery I am feeling fine.
Of course it is boring but I am able to work quite productively.

Today they also removed the cable inside my penis, which was scary as I had read from Bohemian that is was painful, but for me it was not a big deal.


It really bothers me to see how hard it is to lift my legs. I hope that muscles will come back soon, as the constant anathesia was removed today.

Everyday I have to use a stretching machine to bend my knees for 1 hour. At first I was only able to do 90 degrees, but yesterday 110 and today 120. I hope that this does not become less as I start to stretch.

[Penguinn]

Those are some heavy casts. The muscles won't come back soon; they'll come back over a few weeks of physiotherapy but the progress is continuous. They won't be nearly as heavy as they are now. Good luck with your journey.

[helloworld]

Thanks for your advice!
Good luck with your recovery!

[The Kaiser]

I am currently doing limb lengthening in Barcelona with Fitbone.


Just around  15 years ago, before September 11, I found out about limb lengthening, and I was determined to do it. But I never had the time and money. Then I sold my company recently, looked limb lengthening up again 2 months ago and yesterday I had my surgery!
As you guys of this forum helped me, I want to give back by sharing my experience.

How I decided
In 2001 I told my family that I was going to do limb lengthening surgery, but they were totally against it and at the time I also did not have the resources.
Thus I waited.
In 2012-2014  I was living in Kiev, Ukraine, and I was seriously considering doing it there. But for several reasons I did not have a good feeling about doing it there.
Then 3 months ago I read again about limb lengthening and found that it was definitely advisable to do internal limb lengthening and it seemed there were 4 internals rods that I could trust:
Precise
Fitbone
Prof. Guichet’s Albianizza
Betzbone
Prices for all these internal methods seemed very high, Prof. Guichet and Prof. Betz quotes me over 55,000 USD.
Then I looked at the fitbone website, to see all the clinics using the fitbone device and decided to  write to several.
The response, and ensuing conversation I had with Dr. Alejandro Monegal from Barcelona lead me to trust him. Also, the prices he quoted were 36,000-38,000 euro, cheaper than what I had seen elsewhere for the internal method.
So 3 weeks ago I flew to Barcelona. I had long conversations with Dr. Alejandro Monegal as well as with several of his patients. As a result I became convinced that:
The surgical procedure is very standard and very little risk
The pain during lengthening is not so bad
Functionality will be recovered almost 100%
Thus I decided to go ahead!
I decided on the option of lengthening both legs at the same time, even though Dr. Monegal prefers to do one after the other. The reason is that if I am going through pain I want this to be intense and short, rather than getting even more pain once the first leg is done.
Doing both at the same time means that I will be bound to the wheel chair for the time of lengthening. As I want to lengthen 5,5 cm and 0,8 mm can be lengthened per day, I will spend over 2 months in the wheelchair.

Great story, hope you're happy with result, you done it, 15 years in the making wow

whats your initial height?

[helloworld]

Thanks!
I am actually above the US medium of 5'9! So I feel guilty because I know I should be happy and I know some of you will not understand. But you see, my sister is almost 6 feet, my father 6'2 and my brothers 6'3 and 6'5. In that environment I was always have been the little one and will continue to be.
But when I went abroad to China, India, and Latam I noticed that felt much more comfortable. So I just wanted to keep this feeling of comfort.

[dade]

hello, can I ask you a question? how much is the residence where are you?

[helloworld]

It is 1380 euro for a single room per month and 1500 euro for a double room.
They have a gym, an small pool, and 24 assistance if needed.
I took the double room as it has a nice balcony and a lot of sunlight.

[helloworld]

I had operation almost 3 weeks ago. Everything went fine. Fitbone great. Dr. Monegal great. Clinica Diagonal great. Residency Mic Sant Jordi great.
But last week suddenly by fitbone in my left leg stopped responding. The next day Dr. Monegal came to the residency and also was not able to get it to work. So already the next day I went back to the clinic to replace the receptor of the Fitbone. Again I had to undergo surgery! :-(
But the worst was that it was found that not only the receptor had broken, but also the fitbone itself. So I talked to the engineer and even the director of Fitbone directly, and they said they have no explanation how this could have happened and this never should have happened and never had happened before.
Nonetheless, I had to undergo yet another surgery to get the fitbone replace with a new fitbone the next day!
Dr. Monegal was great in this situation, he was depressed as he could not deliver perfection due to a failure of the fitbone, showed a lot of empathy, and promised he will do everything to make my recovery as smooth as possible. He told me not to worry about any of the costs of the hospital nor of the fitbone or operation, that he would take charge of that, even though the fitbone failure was not his fault but of the company Wittenstein.

I would still recommend Dr. Monegal and fitbone 100%.
But in regards to Fitbone, it also depends on my conversation with the representatives of Wittenstein (make of Fitbone), who is flying to Barcelona, day after tomorrow. I expect them to assume full responsibility, express their empathy, say "sorry" and do not make me pay for the faulty fitbone or at least give me a discount. Let's see.

[Penguinn]

Sucks that it happened. Good on Dr. Monegal for handling it well.

Something similar happened to me with PRECICE 2- the nail wasn't lengthening but it was replaced in the OT itself, so I didn't have another surgery. Apparently the chances of that happening are incredibly low. The replacement was free and I hope yours is too.

[notimportant]

Why do the representatives of Fitbone say Fitbone never fails and it has never happened to them? There have been other failures with Chrisisaak and other Dr Monegal patients. This forum reported that one member got MANY bad nails and many surgeries! Some nails stopped working in the middle of lengthening and other nails failed in the operating room. This nail is not to be trusted. I don't trust Precise either but I prefer Precise. Guichetnail seems the best option so far. I will wait for Mitkovic's internal diaries to see if they are good apart from cheap.

[Auron]

Hey helloworld!

You were unlucky with the fitbone failure but I'm sure everything will turn out just fine. I'm also at MIC so if you need anything just shout 

[helloworld]

Thanks for your wishes!
Dr. Monegal knows all the different nails, and as he think Fitbone is the best, and he did explain me all the reasons why, I trust that Fitbone is the best.
So I guess I was just unlucky.

From all what I have studied I am still very convinced that Fitbone with Dr. Monegal is by far the best option, at least for those who are not on a very limited budget and therefore have to do external lengthening in a low cost country like India or Serbia with more pain and likely more complications.

Tomorrow, I meet a rep of Wittenstein and I will see if I get a similarly great response as I got from Dr. Monegal.

[notimportant]

That's his opinion. I bet Dr Paley says Precise is the best and Dr Guichet says Gnail is the best and Dr Betz says Betzbone is the best. I trust those doctors more than your doctor but if you like that nail it's OK.
The only thing I know is this nail is giving problems to many people. You're not unlucky. The most unlucky person is the guy whose Fitbone failed and was threatened with external fixator and Musicmaker who had MANY faulty nails. There are many threads in this forum about Fitbone failures by Lluser and other members.
I wish you the best for your lengthening.

[Ozymandias]

The most unlucky person is the guy whose Fitbone failed and was threatened with external fixator and Musicmaker who had MANY faulty nails. There are many threads in this forum about Fitbone failures by Lluser and other members.

You keep talking about yourself in third person...

[helloworld]

Today I had a great meeting with people from Fitbone.
They took their time to get to know my case and they did admit that they do have fitbones failures at a rate of 0.3%, so around 12 people out of aprox. 4000 implants.

Musicmaker lives around 25 meters from my room, so I was able to know her case a little bit. She did have very, very bad luck but as far as I know she does not blame fitbone.

Maybe I am biased because all the patients that I talk to in person, I met her and of course they came to the same conclusion as I did, reinforcing my belief that Dr. Monegal and Fitbone are the best options.

[helloworld]

Actually, I did meet a patient last week that had the femur lengthened by Guichet in France but then decided to switch to come to Barcelona for Tibia lengthening.

[notimportant]

Guichet doesn't do tibia. I guess that's the reason. And price.

Implants fail then. Who is to be blamed when implants fail if Fitbone isn't? Doctor? Patient? I'm playing the devil's advocate. I'm not accusing anybody. There are some paranoid users here.

Good luck with your lengthening helloworld

[helloworld]

I agree with you!
If a nail fails, and the doctor and the patient did nothing wrong, they are liable. This is true even though they were not negligent, because it is within their responsibility.

And in that case a nail fails, and a patient has to undergo another surgery, for the nail manufacturer to say "we will give you another one for free!" is a joke! That is like a builder, who builds a faulty house the crashes and leaves the inhabitants disabled saying: "Don't worry we will build you another house for free!"

What about all the cost the patient had in terms, of pain, additional rehab, lost work hours, and maybe even chronic damages?

I am a lawyer, but I really do not like to sue anybody nor argue with anybody. But when I get damages from a product failure, and this product was not a toy from China, but a precision medical product, I do except the manufacturer to offer me a reasonable compensation.

What is reasonable? In once case a women placed her McDonalds coffee in between her legs while driving and when it spilled she got burned. McDonals had made the coffee a few degrees too hot, so she was awarded 2.5 million USD! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants

I think this is an exaggeration. But I think at least the manufacturer of the nail should refrain from charging anything from that patient, or at least not for the leg with the failed bone. This is likly no cost at all to the nail manufacturer, as the material costs are a small fraction of the sales price. And as the failure rate is very low (with Fitbone 0.3%) there is really no cost at all for them to offer this to all their patients.

What do you guys think?

[Ozymandias]

I totally agree with you, helloworld. If a nail fail, the manufacturer should offer a replacement at no cost. It is not only an ethical decision, and good for the patient (for obvious reasons) but also some good advertising for them with virtually no economic cost on the big picture.

However, in some cases the problem could be determining if the failure was caused by a faulty nail or by a bad decision / unlucky accident by the patient. I think it was Bohemia who said that a guy went alpine skiing while still lengthening and bent the nail. This is a very obvious (and possibly exaggerated) case, but I hope you get what I mean.

[helloworld]

TO be clear Ozymandis: I am NOT saying the manufacturer should offer a free replacement!
Of course he should! But beyond that he should either pay either:
full consequential damages of the patient
or cover the full cost of operation
or at least cover the cost of the nail (and the replacement)!

Just offering a replacing nail, while the patient has to undergo additional surgery including pain, rehab, and lost work seems like a bad joke to me!

[notimportant]

Of course they should offer a replacement and they should give it for free and they should compensate you and all people whose implants failed. If you pay such a large amount for your implants there is no legal way you are forced to pay again for them if they were faulty. From a lawyer's perspective they should compensate you with a large amount of money. Extra surgeries mean more long-term consequences. No amount of money is large enough to compensate for your suffering but money can help. We are talking about large sums of money.

I read there was one guy whose Fitbone failed and he was said he was being ex-fixed by that doctor of yours and he had to pay for an external fixator in addition to what he had already paid. That's crazy. If I were that guy I would sue Wittenstein for sure. Read the quotation below.

People must learn to admit their mistakes and pay for them. If the Fitbone is faulty, Fitbone must pay. If the doctor makes a mistake, he must pay. If the patient makes a mistake it's him who must pay. Each case must be studied in depth to determine who is to be blamed.

In October some prospective patients visited Dr Monegal’s center and met some actual patients. I have visited the center. Glenn described this tour in his diary. Everything seemed fine but the doctor didn’t tell all the truth to his future patients. He introduced these people to all his current patients but one girl who was also at the guesthouse and who has had very serious complications (Musicmaker??). This is for me a case of dishonesty. I learnt about this after my trip.

I can understand that this is a difficult surgery and sometimes things go wrong, but doctor said none of his patients had had complications which wasn’t true.

After the trip, I made some research. I asked some people (patients and people from the forum) and got to know that it’s not only this girl who had problems, but other people. It seems there is one American guy whose implant failed. Dr told him that he had to be exfixed and he had to pay around 7000 eur. Finally the company sent a free implant for him but it failed too and he had to go to OR again. It isn’t about money but about all the trauma and suffering for that guy. It seems he hasn’t been compensated.

[Whimsical]

If the nail has failed the Company must offer a new one free of charge of course.
My advice: all patients affected by malfunction of implants should prepare a class action lawsuit to be compensated. In America you can get large amounts of money, sometimes millions of dollars. Some cases in this forum are bad enough for that. If a woman burnt by coffee gets that amount, that American guy and Musicmaker would get millions and millions. They would become very rich.