Well, the truth is, if uh the IT band when we’re doing a femoral lengthening it does regrow, so it heals and then slowly, slowly stretches. However, the muscles just stretch. They do not necessarily regenerate per se. We know that, if you analyze with an electromyogram, the muscles… the electromyogram being the nerve conduction… the activity within the nerves that go into the muscle, there are signs after lengthening of denervation. That can be decreased by using e-stim, and it recruits sarcomere used which are the contractile units. Now clinically, it does not cause any functional impairment. Now a lot of people ask me can I remain a high level athlete…..
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2298769/
You are a hero Serilium!
So he stops with the muscles at "they just stretch" and do not "regenerate per se".
And then he goes to explain how nerves also become worse in a way and that it's possible to reduce that by using "e-stim" but I don't know why it's not used in practice then.
It's puzzling how this question is not asked more often by us PATIENTS. Most people ask questions like how much length, how much does it cost, how soon can I work again, what are the complications, but the unique thing about this surgery is the stretching. Patients need to be more curious about that.
It also puzzles me to this day how they don't make people sign all this on the informed consent form. If you see the informed consent form, it's made to make you think that things might go wrong and cause complications but the truth is, it has been studied that there will be some degeneration which a patient needs to be aware of. In some sense, patients need to be made aware that this is an experiment at some level.
But kudos to Dr. Assayag for being completely honest. He seems like a very genuine doctor.