Is it better to do 8cm in femurs or 4.5cm in femurs and 3.5cm in tibias simultaneously? I am asking purely medically and not anything else. Is it easier to stretch each bone segment for a short length (BUT simultanesouly) or stretch just the femur for 7-8cm?
Is simulataneous quad known to be "safe" as per research? Because Ilizarov showed us that it is ok to lengthen 1mm per day. But if we lengthen 1mm of each segment of the same leg 1mm per day then it is 2mm per day, isn't it?
And Thank you motoboarder for sharing your experience with us.
IMO it's better to do 4.5cm femurs, 3.5cm tibias simul than whole 8cm femur. However if doing just 1 segment, I'd never exceed 4cm tibia or 6cm femur. I personally concluded these numbers from collective research from patient experiences/advices from this forum, cyborg4life blogs and few other medical articles related to LL.
Stretching for simul quad requires more effort as there're more exercises to cover all muscle groups. However to your question, in general yeah, I think distributing the "stress workload" (including stretching) to 2 segments is easier than asking just the femurs to achieve the whole 8cm.
"Is simul quad safe" - I think so. I survived, about >1mo into consolidation now. Flexibility still good until the end, so that the strictest PT at Paley's asked me "any reason you do NOT want to continue lengthening?". I was back to work the day I stopped lengthening, 40h/week software engineering i.e. cognitive function is as fine as before lengthening. I feel stable walking (actual alter steps) using walker, no duck ass. I'm not allowed standing/walking unaided yet so can't comment on that at this point. My thought.. to assess "safe", you have to be responsible with your own lengthening process: be disciplined with stretching/exercise, maintain healthy lifestyle/environment, stay relaxed, eat well, etc and most importantly, listen to your body. I.e. never rush getting more mm/day.
If you do simul quad, the medical standard of lengthening is .75mm/day femurs, .5mm/tibia, giving you 1.25mm/day of height gain. Some patients slow down a bit toward the end if they get tight. It should be unethical to lengthen faster than this.