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[marathonrunner]

Hi Everyone,

So I had tibia lengthening done approximately 4 weeks ago. I am going to be posting my X-rays that were taken approximately 2 weeks from surgery.

I noticed that my left leg was not as aligned as my right leg. I looked at both the front view and the side view and I noticed that my tibia looked quite different, even my fibula on my left leg is not as aligned as my right leg.

Is this normal or is this something I should be worried about? My doctor keeps saying, its within tolerance, its fine, don't worry, but honestly the more I look at it, the more I worry that my bone will be curved/slanted/ basically not as straight as it should be.

I'm reaching out to the forum because I don't feel that comfortable with my doctor's answers. If you are going to tell me to consult my doctor, I have, several times, but I just want to hear from other people who have had experience, if this is normal or not. To my non-doctor eye, it looks quite different my left and right leg. And honestly its been healing (feeling) quite different as well.

Front View:
Left Side View:
Right Side View:

I don't know how good these images are but lets give this a try.

[Sanity]

your doctor is right, its not that much to make a worry. My displacement is a little more than yours on my right leg but i am using illazarov so it can be perfected whenever we want to. In ur case you can practically do nothing other than surgery to perfectly align that, which i suppose would be utterly stupid. Your legs are fine, stop worrying and focus on the bone regenrate which will be ur main concern in the months to come, possibly years.

[marathonrunner]

Thank you Sanity. I was worried that I might have some problems in the future because of this.

I really appreciate your response. Thanks a lot.

[California2]

Your films look great to me. 

For what its worth, I had multiple orthopedic trauma surgeons (non-limb lengthening) tell me they do not even consider the fibula when repairing a tibia with an intermedullary nail.

I think it would be too much to conclude that fibula alignment is unimportant; however, it seems to be the least of most trauma surgeon's worries.

[marathonrunner]

Thanks for your response California2. Sorry for the late reply. Did you get LL done yourself? In my left leg when I stand up straight with a straight leg, I can feel the top part of the tibia (the part that juts out) start to push against my skin. Actually I had an infection on the surgical site because of this issue. To clarify, the doctor thinks its from stitch out, but I think its a combination of stitch out + standing up straight which causes the top bone to push more into the newly closed wound. (I've been on antibiotics and still am taking antibiotics because I had to get rid of the skin infection (1 type of infection) and since I can't do an MRI due to having metal in my body I'm taking antibiotics for bone level (2nd type of infection) and treating it as if it is there)

Its a bit hard to explain on here but I feel movement in the top part of the tibia (the part that juts out) whenever I stand up straight and make my leg straight. If I stand up but my leg is sort of bent, the pressure isn't as much as if the leg was straight and locked in place. Not sure if it is pressure from the knee or pressure from the angle of the break or some combination of factors but the end result is I usually keep my left leg in a bent position rather than completely straight. So I've been using a wheelchair even though I have Stryde which is weight bearing and keeping my left leg sort of bent whenever I'm on crutches.

Not sure if anyone has experienced this before or I just have some sort of bad luck (which seems to be following me around) :[

[robbie1984]

where do u have this surgery?

[pickingasurgeon]

Hi Marathon,

I am planning to have tibial lengthening soon and was still searching for a doctor. Who did you operate with? I would appreciate your advice.

Kind regards,
PickingASurgeon

[marathonrunner]

Hey Robbie, I got your emails, talking to you there.

Pickingasurgeon, are you in Asia? Have you tried Dr Lee in Korea?

[TemakiSushi]

Also please be very careful with lengthening speed
When bone is bent backward like this, consolidation may become very slow
One bent bone case of which I’ve known a patient had to slow down to 0.25mm a day
If lengthen too fast, may face non union which will be much more complicated than fixing bent bone

My friend orthopedician is worried about your bent bone also
This bent bone is causing you the problem he says

[Michael01]

Also please be very careful with lengthening speed

I would also say to be very careful with taking advice from this forum.

[fodawupa]

can some one point out what is wrong in the xray. i cant easily see what the problem is.

and who is ur surgeon marathon runner?

[TemakiSushi]

If you see the side view, the bone is bent backward
This cause the difficulty of standing straight

[Sanity]

There is a slight bend but your comment regarding slow consolidation has no grounding in medical literature. I had the same bend on 1 leg but regeneration is identical despite going at a fast pace.

Thats the disadvantage with internals one cannot fix any misalignments. When the lengthening is done the bend could become more pronounced but i dont know if much can be done about it.

For me the bend is much worse but im on externals so my lengthening has finished and now im waiting to fix the small 2-3 degree of knee bending which should take a week and then il head in for corrections. In about 1 week of corrections my bent will be eliminated.