I first read about this surgery perhaps way back in 2009 when I was trying some natural ways to get taller. At the time, the idea (of breaking your bones to be 5cm taller) just sounded insane to me and that there was no way on earth I would do it.
That's basically where I stood for the next following years until just a few years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I was determined to do it. My original deadline was in 2021. It was one of the reasons why I was tempted to gamble my money more aggressively. Unfortunately, it didn't end well, I practically lost everything and I kind of abandoned the LL plan for a while. I was forced to start everything from zero again and kept myself occupied with other things.
And here I am now in my late 20s. A few more years of my youth have passed. I regret the bad decisions I made and all the time I have wasted although not fully since I still used it for improving other aspects in my life.
However, I must admit that there are some advantages to doing it a little later:
- I get to see if a safer alternative height increase procedure ever comes out (as the poster Extremis predicted back in 2018)
- I get to wait until the LL technology becomes a little more advanced and tested and by that point, we will know more which surgeons are the best who are capable of maintaining consistent results in the long term.
- And most importantly, I have accumulated even more anger in the last couple of years which is important when you undergo such an extreme procedure. It became clearer to me than ever that I can never live my life knowing that I'm not even a full 5'6" man and that I'm universally perceived as "short". And I know that if I don't do it, my future self is going to resent my current self the way my current self resent my past self. And that I will most definitely regret it my deathbed one day.
Another reason that makes me think I should do it is that it just so happens that at 5'6", I'm at the height where you would benefit the most from LL. But by that logic, that means that I'm also the one who's gonna lose the most by not doing it.
I literally have enough money for Dr. Solemin's Conventional Ilizarov advanced scheme that costs 1.433.313 ruble. Obviously, now doesn't seem like a good idea but it could be in 3-4 years when things got better.
Back then, my strongest candidate was Dr. Giotikas but it's gonna cost a lot more. Another one I'll be looking into is probably Dr. Franz Birkholtz who seems like a good ethical doctor.
I just want to do 5-6cm external tibia lengthening with TSF frames so it probably won't be with Paley, not just because he's expensive but also because he exclusively do internal lengthening. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!