OK, Paley answered the first one, he said there's no evidence of altering the tibia-to-femur ratio with bilateral LL leading to arthritis or other negative health effects long-term. The only study that indicates such a thing is one conducted on cadavers of people with arthritis, and the findings were that they were naturally born with an abnormal t/f ratio and that was correlated with arthritis. He also said he performed his first cosmetic LL in 1988 and in the 35 years since then he has seen no evidence of patients who underwent bilateral LL developing arthritis. The only real factor is the cosmetic one.
Unfortunately due to time constraints or other reasons Cyborg didn't ask the second one. Maybe at another Q&A.
For what it's worth, I actually had a follow up consult yesterday with Giotikas and asked him this question regarding whether altering the 0.8 femur/tibia ratio leads to arthritis and/or loss of biomechanical functioning. Giotikas essentially gave the same response as Paley.
I am summarizing what he said, but here it is- Giotikas said
"
there have never been any studies (Giotikas had seen) to suggest that altering the ratio leads to arthritis or biomechanical problems down the line. He has operated a lot of deformity correction cases (i.e. non cosmetic) and there were never any instances where altering the proportions was the cause for functioning reductions either.
The key to avoiding those types of problems is preserving the mechanical axis of the leg, which a skilled LL surgeon should know how to do. According to his experience and knowledge of studies, there is no clear benefit (to functionality in the legs/ body) from preserving the proportions.
Proportion (femur to tibia ratio) is an individualized decision. Doing both femurs and tibias gives you a more proportional result, but it also comes with 2 surgeries. This carries double the risk of complications and nearly double the time and double the cost. "
//////////////////// BREAK (My thoughts on this matter)
So I guess (and now these are my thoughts, not Giotikas), it makes very little sense to do quadrilaterals because you think it will give you better biomechanical functioning. I would argue the opposite as the LL surgery (on whatever segment you end up choosing) in and of itself will LOWER THE FUNCTIONING OF THAT SEGMENT you do, no matter how good your outcome is. If you get a femur surgery, you will NEVER be able to move your femurs as fast as you did previously, and thus you will never fully regain your prior sprinting speed. If you do quadrilaterals and now add tibias to the mix, that exacerbates the functionality issue even more. Now you have reduced the functionality of both segments simply because
both segments underwent LL. So if your goal is preserving biomechanical functionality, it seems to me that doing the surgery on both segments (even if you only lengthen a small amount in each, say 5 cm femurs, 3 cm tibias) would reduce the functioning of your body far more due to the
compound effects of having 2 LL surgeries. It would do more damage than if you maxed out your femurs (say 8 cm) and then never touched your tibias whatsoever.
But again, I am not a surgeon and that last thought is my 2 cents on this (complicated/ confusing topic), so please take it with a grain of salt and form your own conclusions. Or better yet, bring this matter up with your prospective surgeons when you schedule your consultations. This leads me to my conclusion. I see 2 reasons to consider doing quadrilateral LL right from the start-
1). proportion is so important to you (from an aesthetic standpoint) that you simply will be horrified looking at yourself in the mirror after a femur LL because your femurs are now out of proportion with your tibias. You think this is a major problem or could become one for you. I can't make that decision for you, but I will share a personal anecdote below of why I think this reason is not the best reason to do quads.
2). You are certain that your lengthening goals are
9 cm or above and you would not be satisfied with anything less. Then I believe it IS worth considering quadrilaterals so that you do not dramatically exceed what are commonly the upper limits of femur lengthening (7-8 cm) and tibia lengthening (5-6 cm).
However, if you are simply trying to gain more height, aren't so worried about proportions, and think you would be satisfied with 8 cm AND do not care so much about the aesthetic proportion factor, I think maybe you should consider starting off with just a femur LL and see how you feel after that.
I can tell you that after my femur surgery, there was literally not a single person who (from what I could tell) ever looked at me and seemed to exhibit any sort of curiosity as to why my femurs seemed so much longer to my tibias. And of course nobody ever actually said anything.
I really feel that nobody (or at least very few people) are analyzing your legs and trying to figure out if your femurs/ tibias match a certain ratio or if your legs are symmetrical to your torso.
After my surgery, I felt nobody seemed to care about my new proportions, not even women who saw me walking around unclothed and thus got a great look at my proportions while those body parts were very much "on display"