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[Classical]

Hi everybody, I decided to start a dairy of my journey of lengthening. It's such an extraordinary experience that I feel would be worthwhile to make notes. I have benefitted so much from reading other veteran's dairies, I feel that it's also my time to contributes and share.

I had my surgery on May 26th with Dr Lee at the Severance Hospital. Due to financial reasons, I chose the LON method instead of internal. The surgery itself was painless. I did spinal anesthesia with sedation. The night of the surgery was not as bad as I imagined. Dr Lee came and told me that the surgery was successful. I was in the hospital for five days. They taught me exercises and how to dress my pins, gave me necessary medications, and discharged me.

[Classical]

I have been lengthening at the apartment I rented close to the Severance Hospital for more than two weeks now. Let me just say my lengthening process turned out completely out of my expectation. I was told to lengthen 1mm per day for two weeks before I take my first post op X-ray. From the very first day, my lengthening has been excruciating. I am naturally a very flexible person. To prepare for this surgery, I have been doing Yoga and various stretching exercises for a year. Even Dr Lee said that he felt my soft tissues are very soft during the surgery, that I should be fine lengthening to 7cm. But no, I had muscle pain, skin pain, nerve pain, tendons pain the first two weeks. Yesterday I went and got my first X-ray, and according to the X-ray, even though I was turning at 1mm rate, due to pin bent, I only lengthened 7mm! According to Dr Lee, I might be one of those super unfortunate person who experience excruciating pain from beginning to the end. OMG!

[TRS]

Hey Classical!
Thanks for sharing your LL experience.
I presume that you are lengthening your tibias since you have stated LON and the excruciating pain you are experiencing is maybe due to lengthening 1mm per day.
Many doctors and LL veterans usually advice tibial lengthening around 0.66-.075mm per day unless you risk premature consolidation.
Anyways it will be great if you post your pre-op height.
All the best

[Medium Drink Of Water]

Thanks for starting this patient experience.  It's been informative so far.  I'm glad we've got a patient of Dr. Lee's here telling us what it's like to get LL with him.

Is he giving you any medications for the pain?

[Classical]

@TheRisingShorty: Thank you for your advice! My starting height is 150cm. At this point, since the pain is so bad, I am happy to lengthen just 5cm, maybe even less. Yes, I do agree with you that 1mm could be the reason why I am experiencing so much pain. I asked Dr Lee to slow me down to 0.75mm/day.

@Medium Drink of Water: Thank you for the encouraging words! I am reading your dairy, and am loving every minute of it! Yes, Dr Lee prescribes three kinds of pain meds. Tramadol for weaker pain med, Targin for stronger pain med, and Lyrica for nerve pain. I was trying to avoid taking Targin and Lyrica because of the side effect. However, my nerve pain is driving me crazy, I am back on Lyrica. I was reading many of the dairies from Beijing, seems like Tramadol is the main pain med patients are taking with good results. However, it seems that Tramadol doesn't do much for me.

[G-Man]

Hello Classical!  Thank you for sharing your adventure and I wish you the best!  Feel free to post pics!

[Classical]

Absolutely! I will ask Dr Lee for my X-ray and post it here.

Main while, I started to stand per the doctors request. Dr Lee said that walking is not very important, however, standing is. Yesterday was my first day of standing. It felt like a thousand needles going through my feet and shin. Today was definitely better

[OverrideYouGenetics]

are you male or a female

[ShortyMcShort]

Dont mean to sound rude but can you tell us about one of the most important aspects in CLL, the price. We all know Dr Lee's prices has gone through the roof since he moved to the new hospital. Simply unaffordable now, actually I think unaffordable is an understatement, its a rip off now. Add to that the internal Precise dilemmas he's had with two previous patients and you can see why there hasnt been any more Dr Lee diaries lately, that is again only my opinion so its a subjective thing.

I pretty much put pen on paper that I would do my first LL with Dr Lee, that was until he raised his prices exponentially. So could you please outline your cost for the surgery itself, the apartment you are at and how did you find it, do they help you look for an apartment? I heard looking for an apartment in South Korea is quite hard. And everything else in between.
Thanks for the diary, been looking forward to some more Dr Lee diaries but for obvious reasons there hasnt been anymore since his price hike. Seems to cost more than Dr Paley, Guichet and co now

[Gichelu]

Good luck, Classical! Sorry about all the pain you are in. Are you in touch with other patients of Dr Lee that you can hang out with so you are not lonely over there at least?

[Classical]

are you male or a female

I am female

[Classical]

Dont mean to sound rude but can you tell us about one of the most important aspects in CLL, the price. We all know Dr Lee's prices has gone through the roof since he moved to the new hospital. Simply unaffordable now, actually I think unaffordable is an understatement, its a rip off now. Add to that the internal Precise dilemmas he's had with two previous patients and you can see why there hasnt been any more Dr Lee diaries lately, that is again only my opinion so its a subjective thing.

I pretty much put pen on paper that I would do my first LL with Dr Lee, that was until he raised his prices exponentially. So could you please outline your cost for the surgery itself, the apartment you are at and how did you find it, do they help you look for an apartment? I heard looking for an apartment in South Korea is quite hard. And everything else in between.
Thanks for the diary, been looking forward to some more Dr Lee diaries but for obvious reasons there hasnt been anymore since his price hike. Seems to cost more than Dr Paley, Guichet and co now

Of course! I understand your concern. In fact, it was such a big concern for me that I almost aborted the idea of doing with Dr Lee after the price raise. However, after I had my in person consultation with Dr. Lee, I realized that it's not as bad as I thought. I decided to do the LON method because of less scars, and I want to avoid the 2nd traumatic surgery like the LATN method. The price for the surgery including 7 days of hospital staying is 33,500,000 Korean Won, which is roughly about $33,500 USD. Originally Dr Lee offered this hotel that's close to the hospital for $80 per day during the distraction period, but i found it to be still quite expensive for 3-4 months of staying. I then found this Korean version of Craigslist, and was able to rent a studio online that is high-rise with elevator for about $1200 per month including wifi and utilities. After I am discharged from the hospital, Dr. Lee also requires patients to visit him every two weeks. Each time, it is about $300 for X-ray, two weeks of meds, and doctor's visit. The good thing is right now, Dr. Lee is offering the Stem Cell Therapy for free, which costs $5000. All in all, everything together including food, rent, surgery, doctor's visit is about $40,000 USD for the LON method. I know it is still more expensive than going to China or India, especially considering my native language is Chinese. However, growing up in China, I know how the hygienes can be in those develop countries. I read many dairies of LL veterans getting their pins infected, getting horrible complications in India. To me personally, I would prefer to pay $10,000 more to get a world class surgeon in a world class hospital. Lengthening surgery is no joke, I would rather be safe than sorry.

[Classical]

Good luck, Classical! Sorry about all the pain you are in. Are you in touch with other patients of Dr Lee that you can hang out with so you are not lonely over there at least?

Thank you! Unfortunately, since this price raise, there is no international patients here. Sometimes I envy those who are doing the surgery in India and China. It is always nice to have others whom are going through the same thing to hang out and exchange experiences. 

[Classical]

These are the pictures of my legs right now. In the first picture, you can see that I am wearing those specially shoes 24/7 to avoid ballerina foot. The 2nd and 3rd picture shows my incision. Dr. Lee is such an artist, I am very happy with my scars so far (3 weeks post-op).

[Medium Drink Of Water]

Wow.  I really envy those osteotomy cuts.  Mine were so sloppy.  I got plastic surgery (an extra expense BTW) but they're still not nice like yours.

[TRS]

I like how Dr.Lee does the incision with meticulous care. I reckon it's very important for females to have minimum scarring.

[ShortyMcShort]

Agreed, one of the reasons why I wanted to do tibias with Dr Lee first was because he actually cares about aesthetics and tries to keep scarring to a minimal. Still remember reading Walk6's diary and all the praises he had for Dr Lee.

Is physio still included in the new prices? Or is that an extra you'd you have to pay on top? If so, how is the physio going?
And what do you do regarding food? Who buys and makes them for you? With the old price it was already included and the nurses would bring you food, now we're all on our own it seems. Does Dr Lee provide some kind of made/assistant service like Dr Jamal in the Ukraine?

[Classical]

Yes, I consider myself very lucky to have Dr Lee to operate on me

In terms of PT, there isn't any available. Dr Lee and his assistant gave me a set of exercises such has lifting my legs, towel pulling the back of the feet, standing... He said as long as I do these exercises religiously, I don't need PT. I only stayed in the hospital for seven days after my surgery. The hospital food for my standard is quite bad (but don't listen to me, I am just spoiled. My dad is a chef, and he is the only person who's cooking satisfies me . One thing that is super important is that you have to either bring somebody to take care of you or you would have to hire a caretaker. I am very lucky that my mom came with me, and took care of me since the beginning of the surgery. To be honest, I can't imagine how I would live without her. Going to the bathroom is a big problem, not to mention cooking, cleaning, etc...  Korea is not a cheap country, I imagine to hire a caretaker would be very expensive. The good thing here is takeouts seem to be quite cheap. You can probably have people deliver food to you for $6 per meal.

[GeTs]

Classical once you reach 5 cm , can you take a pic and put it on the forum ?

[Classical]

Yes, I will take a picture once I reach 5cm, however that's going to be in at least 1.5 months.

Everybody, I need help! I am almost 4 weeks post-op, just started standing about five days ago. Right now, when I straighten my knees, I can only stand about 1 minute each time, otherwise my shin starts to hurt. I think if I let my knees curve a bit I can stand more, but Dr Lee is big on keeping the knees straight. I read many other dairies, and it seems at this point of lengthening, people are already walking 1-2 hours a day. Am I super behind? Should I just let my leg hurt and keep on standing for longer anyway?

[Medium Drink Of Water]

I had problems in the beginning too and decided not to do much standing or exercise.  I caught up just fine towards the end.  I say just do what you can when you're able to do it.

[Classical]

Thank you, Medium! You are right, I am going to just do whatever my body limits me to do. Hopefully I will be able to to catch up like you did I can't wait till the day I take off these stupid fixators!

[Classical]

Dr. Lee's assistant just emailed me my first set of X-ray. They are three weeks post-op. In about three days, I will be getting my 2nd X-ray, and I will post those also for people to compare. According to Dr. Lee, I only lengthened about 7mm at that point due to severe pin loss (I turned 1.4cm). However to my surprise, the gaps seem quite clear.

[Classical]

Left leg

[Classical]

Right leg

[ShortyMcShort]

Those cuts are tempting me to reconsider doing tibias with Dr Lee again, its what hooked me in the first time around lol. He has quite a few videos of patients and their recovery periods and they seem to recover quite quickly, based on his Youtube videos. I actually might reconsider and do LON with Dr Lee, just one problem and that is assistance. Unlike you I'll most likely be doing it solo, could you ask him roughly how much it would cost to hire a caretaker? Or how much would it cost per day to stay at the hospital, Im guessing its quite a bit now

Also regarding your search for the studio, could you maybe link us the site? Did you find it once you got to Korea or whilst you were still in your home country? Is there a specific place you go to for someone to help you find a place? And regarding the Stem Cell Therapy being free now, is that confirmed by Dr Lee considering like you said it was about $5,000 before

[Classical]

Hi ShortyMcShort,

I saw Dr.Lee today, and asked him about assistant. He said to hire a caretaker in Korea costs about $80 per day. I think the hospital is very expensive, single room is $700/day, double is $560/day, and five people room is $340/day.  The good thing is Dr. Lee is in the process of getting a guest house for his international patients. Once that is founded, you wouldn't have to worry about finding your own accommodation, and there will be people taking care of you.  The link for apartment: http://seoul.craigslist.co.kr/apa/  I called a couple agents listed there, and found this place. Hope the information is helpful In terms of the Stem Cell Therapy , since Dr. Lee is new at the Severance Hospital, something about the procedure needs to get approved by the hospital. While it is not approved, they will give it out for free. And yes, the stem cell therapy is $5000.
If you have any questions, you can also email Dr. Lee's assistant, her email address:assistdong@naver.com I address her as Ms. Han.

[ShortyMcShort]

Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions Classical given your condition, much appreciated
A guest house will do wonders for future international patients considering majority of people do this solo with no assistance bar you of course, lucky you 
The price as mentioned by you doesnt seem too bad for LON at all if one can find a decently priced accommodation, its when you stay longer at the hospital that really adds up and makes it ridiculously priced. Did he mention when he thinks the guest house will be completed by any chance?

The hospital prices are ridiculous 

[Classical]

Hi ShortyMcShort,
From what Dr Lee was saying, it seems that the guest house is only in the beginning phase as he is still having his friend to look for a suitable location.

My right leg is now 1.7cm, and the left leg 1.4cm. Ever since I took TheRisingShorty's advice and started lengthen 0.75mm instead of 1mm per day, my pain has gone down significantly. So thank you!

When I saw Dr. Lee on Monday, he looked at my pin site dressing, and said its way too loose. Next thing, he demonstrated how to dress my pin site by pressing into an already teared hole and tightly wrapped the site with gauze. Man, it hurts!!! Apparently by wrapping it tight, it prevents the pin from moving back and forth, therefore stops the skin from tearing. Next thing, I dressed all my pin sites as tightly as possible. As soon as I did that, these pin sites started hurting like crazy, and my entire lower leg was swollen like a ballon.

The one thing I REALLY look forward to is eating at the hospital cafeteria after I see Dr Lee. On Monday, I ordered the Korean seafood noodle (Jjiangppong). A huge bowl of noodles with mussle and crab only cost me $6. I then ordered sweet and sour pork to go. They gave me so much that I ate for three meals. The food there is SO delicious, in my opinion, way better than my mom's cooking!!

[Classical]

Just want to write down my thoughts about lengthening these days. Definitely days are a lot easier than nights. For me, the pain level is about the same. However, not able to sleep at night, staring into the dark sky and very slowly turning clock makes depression. I long for those days of my legs free of the metal fixtures. It's amazing how easily we take life for granted of all these simple things, and how simple things could make lives so wonderful. I am laying in bed, constantly thinking how my life would be only without the fixture! Then I count and count how many days I have left to reach my goal and stop turning. The sad part is at this point, this day seems so unrealistically far away. This gives me more respect for people that have gone through this hard process.  It definitely takes a strong personality to stick it through!

[KiloKAHN]

I know how you feel. Right after I started using my walker and seeing how heavy my steps were I missed being able to move quickly and easily. Taking 10 minutes to walk to the bathroom really makes one think about how fortunate they are to have a normally functioning pair of legs. Lying with you feet propped up in bed during the day seems to make time go slower too. And it takes forever to try and fall asleep these days.