I am a new user in this forum. If I said anything wrong, please forgive me. Thanks!
I have considered Paley's limb lengthening option 5, which allows me to increase 16cm in height (4+4cm in femur and tibia, then 4+4cm again after first healing).
However, after reading several posts and understanding the risk of LL, here's some questions I would like to ask:
1 Is Paley's option 5 really feasible? From certain posts, I saw someone said that Paley would stop one's segment lengthening if it has reached a "limit", but usually because that person lengthens on that segment too much once. As I really want to have 16cm in height increase. Therefore, I would like to ask, is lengthening 4cm in just one segment at the first time hardly to be stopped by "your body's limit"?
2 According to Paley's PDF, he said " It is not possible to achieve 8cm in the tibia safely
in one lengthening without compromising or lengthening the Achilles tendon (which leads to permanent
weakness of push-off strength during gait). It is possible, however, to reach 8cm in the tibia safely if it is done
one year apart through two independent tibial lengthenings", I would like to ask, is this real? I mean, I don't mind sacrificing some athletic abilities but having a weakened Achilles Tendon is a serious consequence I don't want to bear.
3 I saw that internal tibia might cause permanent knee pain as the nail has to be inserted by splitting the patella tendon. Some users in this forum said even Paley would do that. However, why did Paley say only about 10% patients have this problem( I mean, if he lengthened the tibia of every patient in the same way, all patients should suffer knee pain in the future)? Also, after the introduction of Stryde Nails, did he still split someone's patella tendon(Last post about his splitting is about 5 years again? At last, if I was really unlucky, could I do a surgery to "correct" the hurt patella tendon? I don't mind having temporary knee pain, but please, not the lifelong and unfixable one.
4 Just like what I said in question 2. I don't mind losing a small amount of athletic ability as I am not an athlete or sport lovers. However, I would like to ask, can I at least jump, run or jog normally like a normal human after recover if I really follow every PT exercise and instructions given by doctors and physical therapists? According to a few medical doctors I have met, I have extremely high physical pain tolerance (It's not a joke), and so I really can tolerate a lot of pain before giving up. If I could return back to like a normal human, I would do any exercise or PT at any time I could, but the question is, do I really could?
5 Can I personally request Paley to do this surgery without splitting the patella tendon, I know it should be a question asked in the consultation but I would like to see did anyone have a similar experience. I would not mind to pay more for safety and avoiding permanent knee pain.
6 If Paley could not avoid splitting my patella tendon, who is the best doctor for external tibia? In this forum, people criticized different doctors differently (ofc as I assume everyone is really an "individual" but that should be unreal). Therefore, any suggestion for doctors that allow me to do 4+4cm in tibia? I would like to avoid complications and so I would lengthen my tibia slowly everytime. (allow soft tissue to heal and regenerate to avoid damaging in Achilles' tendon)
I understand that someone might say I might fk up my proportion. Don't worry, I appreciate your kindness but I am quite sure that the proportion would be even better after LL (I get short muscular legs).
Thanks for taking a look at my post. I hope that I could receive some answers and will deeply appreciate your help!