Perhaps one of the last updates: 8cmHey guys long time no update: I am at 8cm now and even though I wasn't entirely sure how much I wanted to lengthen in the beginning I have decided to go for a little bit more. I already quit my uni semester and I have the time, motivation and dedication. I would feel very disappointed if I quit now because of comfort, I have nothing to do and I am doing much better and a lot of issues disappeared so it's okay, my doctor told me he will decide my maximum after seeing my next xray which I will do next week.
One important thing to note is that I reduced to only 12 clicks a day, I did 13 for a long time but Dr becker wanted me to slow down earlier than I thought but I must say it makes a huge difference (see below). Yes, the clicking phase takes longer but you don't lose time. If you rush to the end quickly you will stop clicking earlier but need months to get rid of awful gait and duckass etc. Plus the bone needs to catch up anyways so essentially in the long term it's no different, Dr Becker assured me. The slower you lengthen the safer, more comfortable, and better it is. In net total rushing to the end only brings more pain, discomfort and misery.
But yes I do gotta admit that it is mentally draining to be so slow. it again adds up extra days of clicking but I try to not dwell on that and just go with the flow, and follow my doctors orders and not be a noncompliant idiot. If he says 12 now I do 12. period.
Anyways, since I only do 12clicks my walking improved A LOT. It made a big difference, here is a quick video of how I walk at home:
https://imgur.com/a/900D2FGThose are some of my points now:
- I walk entirely without crutches at home now. I am actually walking at a quite decent speed. I am so glad I chose a weightbearing option. I could not imagine this without weightbearing. I think the capability of being able to walk around retains important amounts of muscle (it still atrophies a lot) and also enables you to stretch standing up etc which is very important. I expected LL will be like this; things get worse and worse and worse until you stop lengthening. But that was NOT my experience. I think due to weightbearing, I was able to start recovering walking and it's much better every week although some issues come and go.
- I can get up from low seats like the toilet seat etc pretty normally. I just stabilize myself a bit with my hand behind my back and then get up. I don't need a crutch or handle to do it anymore.
- I have 0 wide legs. My legs close normally when I stand, walk or lie down. No ITband issue.
- Some duckass but it's not really noticeable with clothes, I do have to focus on my quads and hip flexor more now to keep it in check. I stretched away the cowboy walk / wide legs that I had at 3-5cm, so I am assured that with disciplined stretching I can fix this problem too.
- Swaying and balance while walking got much better but it's still slightly there.
- Still stretching 4h a day. Some day's it's only 3 and a half hours but never less than that. Most often it's ~4h.
- Very little pain. only right after clicking when I walk there is some tightness pain, other than that it is basically down to 0, but I must say this. I take 1 tilidin in the morning and that's it for the day. The first stretch sessions are always going well but the last one right before I go to sleep is the worst. That's because it's usually 12-16hours ago since I took the tilidin and I have some noticeable pain and exhaustion during the stretching at night.
- sleep is completely normal now. I take 1 novalgin and my personal sleeping pill that I have been taking since 2018 (I stopped it for the surgery because I didn't want to take even more meds but about 4 weeks ago when I reduced the meds even further I started taking it again). I fall asleep quickly and sleep through.
- Right after waking up I always feel very very cold. That's the worst part of the day for me, by far. The waking up. I feel so cold and have to fight to get up so so much. There is 2 reasons for that I think. First is my weight, I lost so much weight and I am so atrophied and underweight now that I struggle with temperature, I use heat packs and stuff like that all the time. Second, while the sleeping pill helps me fall asleep it also makes me more tired right after waking up, it's a trade-off. Anyways this is the worst part of the day when I am feeling very bad and awful. Every day I immediately take a hot bath+my tilidin which makes me go from feeling like dropping dead to feeling good and fine and ready to train for the rest of the day. I think without tilidin I wouldn't be able to do this at all. If I had to quit tilidin a long time ago, I would have quit a long time ago. Some pain medication is so important for this process.
-> I also think winter is the worst season to do this. I live in a cold area and it's slippery outside. Outside I still use both crutches, even though I should be trying to get rid of one at least for the outside, I still use them because for safety reasons, I am very cautious about not falling over when there is slippery, icy, wet uneven floor all the time -_-.
- I struggle a lot with gaining weight, every time I even think about food I want to gag. I don't know why, I wanna eat so badly, just to gain more energy but I still have zero appetite. I force every meal down as much as I can. I drink protein drinks and they help the most because I can drink those more easily. I don't really understand why it is how it is, but I believe it is a mixture between the few meds that I am still taking, my low levels of activity, body still being in healing mode and my mental health which I try to brush aside a lot. My sxxuality is also only about 75% recovered yet but it got a lot better since I only take 1 tilidin/day and I actually think that will recover entirely soon.
- I met a friend who I haven't told and seen since the surgery, I met him at about 6.4cm... and guess what, he didn't even NOTICE anything. Neither height increase nor longer legs. I was wearing long jeans and he was shocked to see me on crutches. I first tried if he will get what I did (he knows the surgery and that I always wanted to do this) but he didn't, only after I told him the story.
- proportions at 8 look still very good. No telling that something is off with clothes, and nked the femur does look a bit long but it's still looking great and normal to me, I like it..
- I am now as high as I was with the biggest lift boots and insoles. It feels great and I can't wait to get rid off all the small things and walk totally normal again so I can stand entirely straight. I haven't tried on those shoes again and I will only once I am recovered, I am only wearing flat shoes right now for the recovery and better balance. I think I definitely los a junk of the height from the duckass (like 2cm) but I think the height gain should be just like calculated.
- Mental health is the worst aspect to me now. I am socially isolated, I am only seeing a friend once in 2 weeks (highlight of my life), I leave the house only a few times per week to go to PT and sometimes if the weather isn't awful for a small walk. The isolation is really taking a toll on me. No YouTube or Internet or anything helps with it. I watched through all of YouTube, there is nothing left of value there. Listened to all the audiobooks that I wanted to. Did it all. I always thought there is an infinite supply of things to do with internet connection but in reality, not really. I mean yes, theoretically, but at a certain point there is just nothing of value. I am in a very annoyed and pissed mood daily, and everything that I see on YT etc is just really TracrapTV at best (Tra$hTV*, yes the word “Tra$h” actually gets censored here wtf xD). I still put it on to have some noise while I stretch. I miss being able to just hop in my car and drive around, go for a hike, etc. Just escaping, but I can't now. My walks are short 30-60 min walks max at a park etc. And even if I could, I have little time. My day is mostly stretching stretching streching. A few 3h a day I play World Of Warcraft and it helps to calm down a bit. Other than that I am feeling extremely lonely and when I go out under people I am very anxious and stressed. I want to address this because this is something I was not expecting. Before LL I was very confident, down to Earth, I worked as a paramedic and have seen all kinds of different people, no problem. Now I am very socially anxious when I am under people. I am not normal and on crutches and I don't feel confident right now. The worst however is at uni.
-> I told people I had knock knee surgery in September/October. And now months later I am still on crutches and I have slight duckass. It just makes no sense. I can't see anyone who I told this until I can walk normally again. This is part of why I decided to repeat this semester.
Anyways, it's just a few weeks left at best, then everything is going to be different. I can't wait.
- Because of those reasons I HIGHLY regret not doing this earlier. I regret it A LOT. I should have done this during the harsh covid lockdowns. That would have been sooooo good. But now we are past this time which sucks.
- BTW; Besides all of this, the days go by so fast. Much faster than ever before. This is super paradox to me because they are as monotonous as ever, so how is it possible? I think because the stretching sessions eat up so much time, I am like "it's evening already? I just woke up". That's really great though bc it means all of this will just be a distant memory (the hospital for example already is), except for the scars that will remember me, nothing else will remain except the height. That's why this is all worth it in the end.
Also, I want to announce that I will most likely be retiring from this forum soon once I am done. I get a lot of messages asking me the same stuff over and over again and I do appreciate them and answer them, however, I kinda want to get to the end of this journey and leave the rest behind me, and not having to read about everything over and over again. I really wanna do tibia but unfortunately, it will take me a long time to be able to do it financially. I think the time you need in between is also important. Maybe once you are 100% recovered you feel like "nah I worked too hard for this, I am not going to be disabled again", but even if you don't, let's say hypothetically the bone and muscle etc it's whatever and if someone would pay the surgery for me but I need to do it the day I stop clicking femur, I probably couldn't even do it. Simply because I need to recover both mentally AND physically (gain weight again, I underestimated how much you actually lose, I can't go under anesthesia again like this, I am a shell of what I was preop). I think with >8cm the very earliest possible date for tibia is 1 year post-op for me. But perhaps even two, if I am somehow able to get together the money by then. Regardless, I do plan to do it one day and have it in the back of my mind but for now, I want to finish this, recover and enjoy my new height. When I do tibia in the future, I am definitely choosing Dr Becker again. I am very satisfied with him. He did a great surgery, and great care afterward. I never ever had one day where he didn't respond to a call or message within more than a few hours AT MOST. Even on Sundays he always quickly responded. I am deeply appreciating that and he has my respect. Also, he was always honest and calming when I was anxious and always helped me with many different things. I think Dr Betz did tell patients much bs I must tell you that. Eg he told us that you could drive a car one day post-surgery ... haha, total crap I still can't drive because it would be dangerous to drive under the influence of opiates smh. So I have mixed feelings about Dr Betz per se, yes he did an excellent surgery together with Dr Becker but he was telling quite a few lies about what is possible and how tough this will be. I think he sees his life's work through rose-colored glasses, to be honest. On the other hand Dr Becker was always honest and realistic about it. Even if I try to think about something, I have 0 negative things that I could say about him, and considering that I am sure that I will definitely choose him again for tibia LL.
IMPORTANT: I do NOT want to recommend any Doctor with this!!! So do not take this as a recommendation, maybe your experience may be totally different. So do your own research as to who you might choose. I am just saying this in case this is the last update. If I have a major problem coming up, I will update you, but if I don't then everything is fine. Other than that I might do one more when I am during/after consolidation but let's see.
Last personal and
most important advice from me for future patients:
- I would only recommend this extreme surgery if you 1) suffer from height severely for many many years, you have to know this process is very hard 2) both have time and a lot of dedication, 3) have some partner, parent, sibling, friend, etc. to support you mentally and with a few tasks (without weightbearing you probably need a caretaker). 4) understand the process properly and what you need to do.
- take enough time off from work/school. you will think "oh maybe in 2 months post op I can work". No, I would highly advise taking up to 4-6 months off.
- You need to set priorities. I quit my uni because this is now my priority. You may think "I can stretch while studying" but that just doesn't work properly. In my opinion, it's "you stretch and maybe do something little on your phone next to it" but not the other way around. stretching and training is number 1 priority the rest comes after that.
- Know that if you choose this option of lengthening at home and not at a rehab center where you will stay until the end that your outcome once you are home is up to you. You need to be very disciplined and stretch many hours a day without a day off, if you don't do that you will have pain, and discomfort and your walk will go down the drain. In the worst case you will need to quit early.
- LL is all about stretching. Stretch or quit. Stretching is the most important thing you need to do.
That's about it for now, I am done soon, looking forward to it. Hope the recovery will go smooth and quickly
cheers.
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