104.42/100.00mm Mission Accomplished!
Hey guys, I've reached 10cm! My left was lengthened a bit more to match the length of my right. It has taken 139 days or 4.5 months since surgery day. Below is a summary of key points through out the lengthening process. I will update it with my recovery as I recall more.
Lengthening Schedule
I lengthened 1mm/day for the first 3cm, 0.78mm for the next 4cm, and 0.52mm for the last 3cm. The first 3cm was quite easy, as there was a lot of flexibility. However, starting at 3cm, I started getting very wide legs due to tight IT Bands. I got an ITB release with Giotikas and it has helped with my stretching a lot. Up to 7cm, my stretching kept up with my lengthening. My legs started to narrow during the last 3cm, as my stretching got more efficient and the lengthening slowed. I thought about stopping at 9cm, but my body felt fine so I went for 10cm. However, the last 0.5cm was exceptionally hard. I got daily nerve pain, and prolonged TFL soreness. My body and Betz basically told me 10cm is the max, even though the Betzbone nail technically allowed 12cm.
In summary, your stretching time is a function of your lengthening pace. 0.52mm ~ 1 hour, 0.78 ~ 1.5 hour, 1mm ~ 2 hours. Any less, and your gait will likely worsen.
Gait
I can close my legs completely, but the duck ass will look very severe, so I leave them slightly widened so I can stretch more effectively. With the ITB release, stretching the ITB became easier. Hamstrings and Quads are generally easy muscles to stretch. My anterior pelvic tilt (duck ass) is partly due to weak gluteous muscles, which I have none and need to work on. What I hear from past patients and surgeons is that the gait almost always recover fully, so I'm not too worried.