This is going to be unpopular, but its meant for future patients. Not for the current crop, so please stay outside of this thread. Thank you
Dear future limb lengthener,
Today I finished 5.5cm in femur with Stryde (the ERC is gen1) with no pain. And I am not sure it was worth it. But that doesn’t mean LL is not worth it for you!
I live in a western country where the average height is around 5’11 for males. I am now around 5’7. So I was well under average before and am still under average (for my age group 25-30)
I breezed through LL, and probably came out unscathed (one doesn’t know if arthritis will occur 5-10-20 years down the road). Compared to many of the diaries on here I had 10/10 LL-experience. I find myself lucky so far.
I was a very happy person before LL. I did not struggle in any aspect of my life, was surrounded by caring family, plenty of friends and everything else. The only thing that nagged me was, what if the height neurosis I had before, returned later in life and tore me apart? By then I would probably have had settled down, formed my own family and it would be too late to do this surgery.
Because of this “limbo” phase which lasted many years, I always backed out of relationships when it got too serious. I was afraid of losing the opportunity to do LL.
I am not going to blame my decision entirely on this community but I did a mistake believing the information on this forum. Thinking the people who did LL and wrote diary were like me. In the beginning you will think a lot of former/current LLers are just like the average person on the street. People just like you. And you kind of empathize with their stories of height discrimination and when you see their outcome the first thing you think is: “I am also going to LL now”. But it’s a deception. It’s mostly sugarcoated lies written by social outcasts with severe body dysmorphic disorder. I don’t want to start explaining why it’s a deception because it would be 10 pages long with personal attacks and mockery of other members. It is not meaningful at this point. And it’s futile, there will always be someone who doesn’t see anything wrong with a post-op patient not being able to jump more than 20 cm off ground 5 years into recovery. Why bother?
I am disappointed I fell for this deception. I am disappointed I didn’t love my body as it were. I blame myself too. When I joined the old forum many years ago I initially wanted 8 cm on femur and maybe some in tibia. Gradually I became aware of the risks and also the lies told by people who did extreme lengthening like Apotheosis, Tall, Crazy+6, Greekster etc.
Apotheosis/Shahn is a particular case that deserves mention because of the element of deception. Many people on this forum genuinely believe he is normal after 20cm lengthening. The weird poses on benches, angled photos on Instagram, oversized t-shirts and pants rings no bells here. A person like Apo who has undergone 9+ cosmetic surgeries is naturally obsessed with appearance. Ask yourself if a person like this would post an unflattering picture of himself? When I hear someone say “If Apo can look that good, I can lengthen 2x too”, it infuriates me. I feel so helpless, I can see the deception but no words will convince the person to see through it. That is how I feel on this forum. I feel like an insane person yelling out. After a while I have come to understanding that it’s just waste of time explaining or trying to convince. In best case I may save one or two, then a new batch of vertically challenged freshmen arrive on the forum only to repeat the same damn thing. Seeing people cross-lengthen, overlengthen, going to Russia/India and suffer as a consequence should not make anyone happy, but it certainly made me come to the conclusion that this is the way ruthless nature works. The less intelligent will get hurt and hopefully be weeded out of the gene pool of the future.
My spidey sense was telling me something was off about this community, hence me changing my goals. From 2 LLs to telling my surgeon I only wanted 6.5cm. Then we agreed on 6 cm. But to minimize the risk of arthritis and joint damages I stopped at 5.5cm. The 5.x cm is the limit because to my eyes there are only 2 videos of recovery that have satisfied me. One is 4.5cm (helloworld) and other is 5.7 cm (OldieButGoldie, who I have the same body type as). And I have read diaries since M.M.T.A, jack0death, jungle days and seen many videos that are now removed from the internet. You may able to recover 100% at 6 cm, 7 cm, 8 cm or even 15 cm. But when it comes to my health, I minimize the risk as much as possible.
Being on and off these forums for 8 years have thought me a good lesson. You should never trust the people who write “I am 100% back”. Everyone has their own definition of what 100% is. For some, walking to and back from workplace is all that is required. For others, like every single Russia patient, a little nerve damage here and drop foot there is part of the “I’m 100% recovered”. So, again always see running video or meet the person in real life before judging their recovery.
An important trait of us humans is our pride. When we do mistakes, we won’t admit it easily.
We are obsessed with appearing perfect to others and concealing the truth if it’s bad.
Take for example the Facebook- and Instagram-culture. Many present photos and videos of their perfect lives while the truth is upside down. The same applies to this forum. People lie about their recovery, about the changes LL made in their life. Many just abruptly stop writing diaries when they suffer complications. And they refuse to tell they are suffering until someone finds out through other channels. Who wants to come back in shame and write “I shouldn’t have gone to Russia, now I have to take painkillers for rest of my life”? I don’t blame them, it’s not easy admitting. In fact, I wonder if I would do it if it happened to me.
For me it was never about gaining height, I was perfectly comfortable with my body. It was the neurosis that needed fixing. If there was a magic pill to fix neurosis with no side effect I would take it instead of LL. But there is so such solution. Shoe lifts are temporarily, Pilates is temporarily, psychologists are frauds, and whatever depression pill people take is dangerous to your health and wellbeing. Only LL can fix it with today’s medical advancement.
I understand this surgery is necessary for dwarfs to function in their daily lives. I also think men below 5’1 may benefit from this. Ironically the shorter you are, the less lengthening you can do before messing up your body mechanics and proportion.
I hope if you are like me, that you think twice before undergoing such a drastic surgery. When you are reading diaries try to read between lines, you will get a clearer picture of what kind of people you are dealing with. Also trust your instincts, if you see something off with a diary then you are probably right. This forums members happen to cheer or each other and have a sheep mentality. The perfect example is a patient named Crazy+6 (Amit) who did two LLs and increased his height by 7 inches. He posted pictures and every single member egged him on to keep lengthening and told him he looked completely fine. Even it was clear his proportions were off by a mile. Today Crazy+6 can be seen limping awkwardly around in the dust soaked streets of Mumbai. Permanently crippled. Sadly, right now the same tale is now being repeated with another member on this forum. Being anonymous frees one from accountability of their actions and words. I never once wrote advice before asking myself “would I write this if it were my own familymember?”
This cult of LLers, is an extreme fringe cult. There are 7 billion people in this world and just an extreme handful people do this. Many of these are on verge of giving up their lives entirely. For them, going from 160cm to 180cm destroying their body in the process, is an improvement of life quality. The perfect word to describe 70% of the people here is
Incel. For those of you don’t know what it is, google it. It’s a pathetic generation of social rejects who can’t handle the reality of the world and adapt. LL won’t the first cosmetic surgery, and it won’t be the last. After LL, another LL. Then nose job, hair transplant, penis enlargement, cheek implants and so on. Endless hunger to escape imperfection, while only ruining themselves in the process.
I am now done with this crap. I actually felt stopping much earlier, but God knows if I am going to pay for not doing it. Staying on these communities any further will defeat the whole purpose of this surgery. I need to move on. I am happy. I was happy before LL. Not much changed. Only thing that changed is I am now free from the neurosis. Which opens the possibility to buy normal shoes. You can say I could wear flat shoes before LL too, yes. It was only the mental part that stopped me from doing that. When I look back at the downsides (so far) with this procedure:
After LL you will be left with permanent doubt every time you hurt yourself whether it was because of LL, permanent worry about arthritis, permanent scars, permanent worry about knee pain down the road, guilty conscience. You may never relax if you were to become a public person / famous person; a speaker, politician, media person etc. because at least one person out there knows about your little secret and it may just “leak out”. And ruin your life. You will feel embarrassed and laughed by entire world. And believe me, confidentiality agreement will be trumped by the curiosity of human nature.
And finally there was a former LLer by the nickname OldieButGoldie who tried to tell me to love myself and not do LL. I don’t know if you’re reading this, but I didn’t understand it back then.
I should have listened. You were right all along. Height is just in the mind. True happiness doesn’t come from few inches. It is something else. Something those happy short people have. Something those overweight happy people have. Those thin happy people have, those tall happy people have. Something those unattractive happy people have. Something those poor happy people have. These people ascended to a different level. You ascended to the next level too at the end… and I couldn’t grasp what it was…. But now as I have ascended and I can see it clearly….
Tldr; if you are happy, have friends and family and lots of love. Don’t do this surgery, it won’t change much. Get off this depressive forum now. If you’re so far down, struggling with neurosis and is almost suicidal go do LL. But you will find out, nothing has changed. You will still not be content, there will always be “just one final cosmetic surgery”. Find the happiness within you. It will last forever.
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Topic: Dear future limb lengthener, I just finished my LL (Read 7995 times)