SUMMARY POST:
- we did it!! After the Xray with Dr.Paley today we have hit 8cm! Well not exactly
- My right leg is 8cm, left leg is 7cm
- for the next 10 days I will continue to lengthen my left leg only
- I never really noticed the difference
- I asked how long I have to wait to do tibias, paley says 1yr to stack the odds in my favour
- he says after about 1 month of stopping lengthening my walking should get really close to normal. To be updated
- my legs feel great, if I could lengthen to 9-10cm I totally would but i have hit the nail limit
SUMMARY OF JOURNEY & PAIN
- throughout this journey there is a concept called “Pain points” this means that as you lengthen and your leg stretches over the bone, nerves, etc, there are points where you will experience more pain than others. This is not proportional to how far you’ve gone (I felt most pain at 3.7cm-4.4cm and least pain at 6-7cm)
Pain medication:
- Tramadol
- Oxycodone (5mg)
- Tylenol Pm
Tramadol:
- This is something you can take every 4 hours to keep overall pain down. In my experience I had to take this weeks 2-4 because of self caused inflammation (more info under inflammation)
- I would recommend asking for this after you’ve already been given oxy
- you’ll likely only maybe need this first 1-4 weeks, you may not at all
Oxy
- This is not something you should take every 4 hours (eventho it says u should)
- oxy is super powerful and you can stack it (take more than one to increase the effect)
- you really want one batch of these in the beginning (42 pills) and only use them when you NEED to when you hit really high pain points. Explained more below
- Taking lots of Oxy can make you feel super high haha it’s kinda nice but please don’t misuse!
Tylenol Pm:
- a MUST HAVE
- I am still taking this till now, it helps you sleep like a baby
- first 3 weeks your sleep will suck because of pain and because it hurts too much to sleep on your side & I cannot sleep on my back
Those are the only pain meds I was using
First 3 weeks: Hell Week
Sources of pain
- Inflammation
- Post surgery pain
- sleep deprivation
Imflammation:
- what is it: Imagine someone punched you in the arm really hard. Eventually your arm will become purple and bruised. If then, someone even touches your purple bruise it’ll hurt! But imagine instead now, that someone is grabbing your arm by the bruise, and SQUEEZING your bruise to the point of agony and 10/10 pain; that’s what inflammation feels like where 1-10 represents how hard someone is squeezing on your bruised arm
- this is a per person basis & it’s directly linked to how much effort you put into strength training, so things like trying to walk, pushing yourself during PT, trying to physically do MORE. The irony is the more effort you put in, the more inflammed you become and more pain you will cause onto yourself. I had terrible inflammation pain I litterally could not sit down sometimes because I anxious to walk early so I started training a lot. I do NOT recommend this. Doing this again I would take it easy the first 3 weeks, let your body slowly get into it. Don’t walk if you dont need to, treat yourself like someone who just did surgery, not someone who’s trying to get super strong super fast. I also saw the same in another patient’s case. He was always telling us how he is excersising all the time, & he also complained about inflammation pain. On the other hand, another patient took more of a laying in bed type of approach, and litterally never used ANY of his narcotic pain perscription! That’s the kinda experience you wanna go for, at least for the first 3 weeks because your body is super fragile just take it slow
If you do end up inflammed, you’ll want to take Tramadol every 4 hours to minimize your pain. Once you start to get inflammed it’s a ty cycle that’s hard to get out of. i recommend a comfy bed to lay in, in my case Homewood suites Kingsize bed is super comfy
Do not take oxy every 4 hours, dont even take oxy during the day. Your body will get addicted and you dont want that. You can take 1-2 oxy at night to if your pain is too high but dont take it during the day
Always take your tylenol pm to sleep well
You will also be losing weight. I lost 10lb 2 days after surgery. The more weight you lose, the more pain you will feel when you try to sleep on the side because you will feel the pins sites
Post surgery pain:
- This sucks but it’s not as bad
- it’s the pin sites that hurt when you touch them (dont touch!) and fluid buildup caused from surgery
- fluid buildup only hurts when you stretch, but you have to stretch it out to get rid of it. It’ll feel like your leg is swollen and like normal stretching soreness
- dont worry to much about fluid build up just stretch 3 times / day & it goes away, not a big deal
Sleep dep:
- pain wakes you up
- inflammation can stop you from sleeping
- doing PT while sleep deprived sucks
- take your tylenol pm
- dont push yourself (for strength activities) take it easy
Week 4-5
- Post up fluid pain should be gone or at least minimal now
- I was now able to sleep on my sides!! Became much much easier at this point to sleep
- I realized i was causing myself inflammation so toned it down a notch and I stopped taking my narcotics!
- overall happy place, lots of pain is gone
Easy in between
3.7cm-4.4cm
- Worst lengthening pain i’ve experienced in my entire journey, but definately not nearly as bad as week 1-3, week 1-3 is the hardest
- My calfs started to get really tight, my pinched nerve in my back started to get inflammed, my back would hurt when I would try to stretch my left leg
- numbness in my right and left leg
- Veins were hurting, felt like they were gonna rip? Hard to explain
Once i hit 4.4 suddenly all those pains just went away. This is what I mean by pain point. The pain will pass, you just hit a pain point. Just keep stretching keep lengthening; dont panic
- did not take tramadol; took oxy almost every night until no longer needed. Sometimes 1 pill sometimes 2 depending on pain.
Easy in between
5.5cm-6cm
- pinched nerve pain returned for round 2
- here I started to really push physically in PT again; I was going super hard on the bike in PT, trying to go as fast as I can so guess what? Caused myself some inflammation!
- Had to take Oxy for 4 ish nights (only at night) until no longer needed
6-8cm
- Super easy
- pinched nerve pain completely gone
- yes I am more tight but you just suck it up during stretching. I don’t consider stretching as a pain because you can control how much you stretch (usually 45 seconds 2 sets each leg each excersise 3 times / day) & it’s kinda just like being at the gym, it’s a whatever temporary pain
- there were a couple nights I took oxy but maybe 2-3 nights
- started going out alot at 7cm
I think that pretty much wraps everything up! I’m really looking forward to doing Tibias. My goal is 6-8cm whatever Paley will let me do without trading off functiion, but ideally 7cm which will put me at 5’10 which in lifts is almost 6’1 id be super super happy. I am not worried about proportions. I am very atheltic so if I just get a thick upper body it’ll be fine. Lookup Simeon Panda if you are worried about proportions, he has almost no torso and looks amazing
If you have any questions LMK! Goodluck LL’ers
Author
Topic: Femurs & Tibias with Dr Paley (Read 128290 times)