Hello everyone!
I am a girl from a small town in India. I have been pretty conscious of my height since I was 14. It greatly affected my self esteem and my life. I tried almost all the natural means(even acupuncture) to grow taller but nothing helped until when I was 16, I visited an Endocrinologist who after seeing my wrist X-Ray told me that my bones have been fused and that there's nothing in the world that could make me grow tall anymore. I was hugely disappointed and I had heard of this surgery before so I decided that I just have to go for it. I was so firm about it and henceforth, I did a deep research.
I went through the details of the whole procedure and the FAQs plus both the forums. Then I researched all the doctors which was the most confusing part because I knew I had to go with the best doctor possible for this since I knew about the risk and complications that can come along with this surgery. I then on the web came across DR. MILIND CHOUDHARY(Akola, Mumbai) who was apparently a pioneer in this surgery so I made my Dad visit him with me in 2011-2012(don't remember exactly) and we also met DR. RUTA KULKARNI. Long story short, meeting them was a disappointment since it demotivated my parents for letting me go for it. They got completely against me going for the surgery but anyway I convinced them somehow and so my Dad told me he would let me go for it once he has arranged sufficient money for it(which I later came to know was just an excuse; he never wanted me to go through it). He kept putting it off and about 6 years down the line in 2017(I was 24!) I thought it's about time to get it done since I was already so late, hence I made a list of all the doctors and visited them. I visited Dr. Dr. Naveen Talwar, Dr. Amar Sarin, Dr. Suhas Suhah, Dr. Mangal Parihar. & I talked to Dr. Subhash Shalya on call. I eventually got the surgery from Dr. Amar Sarin. If you want to know my experience of meeting the other doctors, do let me know and also you can ask me any questions you have regarding them. I'm gonna cut to the chase and straight up tell you my experience so far with Dr. Sarin.
DR. AMAR SARIN: I honestly was sceptical about meeting him because of so many negative feedbacks about him on this forum. But anyway since I was in Delhi, I went to meet him at his guest house in Gurgaon. The physio there Mr. Shariq received me and made me meet one of the patients there. He was almost at the end of his lengthening period. I had a long chat with him and he told me how smooth his journey was and that he didn't face any complications. I was so happy seeing his progress and the environment there seemed so friendly. There were more patients there and I came to know that many people have undergone surgery with Dr. Sarin. I was surprised as it was basically complete opposite of what I had thought considering the reviews of him on this forum.
So I went back to my hometown and told him everything about my visit to guest house and got my dad to talk to that patient with who I talked to before.
And that talk with him literally helped in assuring him the credibility of the surgery. It turned out that my dad was just putting this off earlier cus he thought it would get me crippled or something. But after he talked to him and the PT Mr. Shariq, he gained the trust and looked into this a lot seriously. Also then he informed his brothers about the surgery.
My uncles wanted to be assured of everything so one of them asked Mr Shariq to send him the contacts of 10 patients who had got the surgery with Dr. Sarin successfully. Shariq sent him the contacts and the response from them was pretty convincing so finally my dad got the surgery scheduled on March 15, 2018!
THE BIG DAY(MARCH 15) Finally the big day arrived. Me and my parents reached the Sri Balaji Action Medical Hospital a day before the surgery. A lot of medical tests were taken that day and the next day in morning at about 12pm I had the surgery. It felt like it happened in the blink of an eye since I was unconscious and didn't feel any pain. I was almost asleep till the night. And then as the effect of anesthesia started fading I started having a lil pain in my left leg. It was tolerable though.
The next day, pain increased a lot in the left leg and I started panicking. I informed the staff there and they said it was normal for such pain to be there for 2-3 days following the surgery. The nurses and staff there took a really good care and eventually the pain did fade away.
On March 19, the care taker Akbar arrived there to take me here to the guest house. It was comforting when I reached but I got so anxious as to how am I gonna handle the bathroom trips and etc. I had a lot of such racing thoughts. The physio Mr. Shariq taught me how to travel from the bed to the bathroom using the revolving chair. But my legs felt a lot heavy and it was all scary to me. I got fever that night and was feeling terribly nauseous the following day so the PT told me to drink a lot of water and to keep eating something. I did the same and the fever was gone in a day or two. There was no pain except my legs felt so heavy as soon as I would sit on the chair, which is normal for the first 1-2 weeks after the surgery. The following days passed by smoothly. I was waiting for the lengthening to start which finally started on March 23rd.
THE LENGTHENING PHASEFinally the lengthening started on March 23rd. The PT Mr Shariq taught me how to turn the distraction rod to lengthen 1mm/day.
The physio therapy started the same day in the evening and the PT told me to repeat those exercises four times daily. And I was given a stretching strap to stretch my feet till I can get them to touch the frames. I was glad that my flexibility was good so far. I was regularly doing my exercises and although it was still cumbersome to do the bathroom trips, my legs were feeling a little lighter than before. Day by day shortly with regular exercises my legs started feeling a lot lighter and doing the regular activities became easy. The frames kinda started feeling like a part of my body.
& well by that time I also started adjusting well here. The staff here is very cooperative. The PT Shariq is very experienced and diligent at his work. As soon as there's a problem, you are supposed to inform him and he takes care of it.
There's a caretaker, Akbar, who is very friendly and takes care of the everyday needs like getting the medicines and the stuffs I might need from outside. The other staff members are friendly too, I started getting familiar with them shortly after.
As much as I was excited about the lengthening, the nights sometimes gave me a very hard time. The only thing which kept me going through during nights was binge watching "Two and a Half Men"(I have finished all 12 seasons now😂). And in the mornings my legs would get crazy sore, they would feel normal during the day though.
I had planned to spend my time here reading or doing something productive but I've sufficiently become a lazy ass here.
After about 10 days from the lengthening I got my very first xray. I had grown 8.1mm in the right leg and 1.2cm in the left. I had increased my lengthening to 1.5mm/day in the right leg for a couple days for it to catch up with the left leg.
The pain was on and off. There was stiffness in the left leg knee which went away after a couple days and soon after I got pin cuts in my right leg which pained like hell. It was a sharp pain which was really bad and I think it was cus of me lengthening 1.5mm/day before or it could be cus I had a bad habit of picking the scabs around the pin sites. I'm just glad I did not have an infection! Anyway I informed the pt Shariq about the pain. He asked me to not touch the pin sites, gave me some meds and said the pain would go away in a couple days. The meds helped a lot and I noticed the pin sites were getting better each time I slept after taking the medicines. Anyway such pains are no big deal, they are like part and parcel of this surgery, they come and go away soon. Other than that I didn't have any pain whatsoever. Never anything serious. Soon I got the second Xray and I had lengthened 3.3cm in the left and 3.6cm in the right leg. This time I decided to not increase the amt of lengthening per day for the left leg to catch up with the right leg as it could lead to a trouble so I let them lengthen at the same pace.
The legs started to look noticeably longer which was enticing. There was no pain and esp. daytime hours would go very smoothly. I didn't have any muscle pain whatsoever. If there was any pain, it was sometimes at the pin sites which was on and off and would go away with the painkillers. With the increase in lengthening, I have noticed that the legs become stiff right after waking up and sometimes at night. They start feeling heavy and the movements kinda hurt. Exercising and stretching is what really helps at that time. And the painkillers ofc. Now I am at about 6cms(yet to get my 3rd xray) and I am glad things are going smooth. If there's any pain or a problem, it's well taken care of.
I have been trying my best to take care of my diet and I'm gonna have to exercise as much as I can & mostly focus on stretching as stretching is the key. Soon, I will be taken for my 3rd xray. For now, I am attaching the pics of my 1st and 2nd xray and of my lengthening before & after.
I would like to conclude by saying that I've honestly had a pretty good experience with Dr Sarin so far and I don't understand how there is sucha negative buzz of him here. Contrary to most feedbacks of him, I have seen and known most patients here with such good LL experiences and them been recovered successfully. If at all there's any complication, it's always well taken care of.
I just want to say that please don't make your decisions based on these forums because there are many paid/fake/biased diaries and most hide half of the story. So just visit the doctor, the guest house and meet the patients in person and explore things by yourself instead of jumping to any conclusions about anybody based on the so-called diaries.
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Topic: LL with Dr. Amar Sarin - March 15, 2018 (Read 7948 times)