Limb Lengthening Forum

Thank you for sharing.

In my opinion, the main problem is that most of the "short community" does not have the necessary scientific acumen and knowledge to keep up with developments (myself included), and also connect the dots between them. Ideally, I think we'd need a centralized place, be it a twitter account or a community of some sort, where it could be demonstrated, in laymen terms, that such a possibility is not a fantasy destined to only materialize itself in the far distant future - that it could be done once science gets to point A and B, so we can do C. It'd befall on whoever is in charge of such an account or community to demonstrate how close we are to points A and B, and to keep the whole community updated. That is an ideal scenario.

This thread is for the skeptics (one of whom is particularly egregious) on this board who believe that traditional distraction osteogenesis using an Ilizarov frame or magnetic nails is the only procedure we're likely to see for effective limb lengthening in our lifetime or within the next 20 (or whatever ridiculous, inflated number) years.

Those of you who have seen me post on this board before have most likely seen me say time and again that we're no further than 10 years away from a safer, more effective procedure that could allow for even more growth than distraction osteogenesis with much greater (if not total) retention of physical abilities, particularly athletic ability. The last time I discussed this on this board was a few months ago now (I haven't posted in a while), and I had one back-and-forth with what is possibly the most fervent skeptic on this board that terminated with that individual essentially dismissing my claims regarding the imminent creation of such a technique as a fantasy or product of hopeful delusions.

I responded to this by informing that poster that they were a scientific illiterate and do not understand the way scientific progress works, or the magnitude of the increase in the rate of scientific discovery and advancement in the information age. Well, being an enthusiast and hobbyist of several biomedical fields, I constantly keep myself up-to-date with recent scientific advancements and discoveries in those same fields. And, earlier this week while I was browsing my sources, I happened upon these very interesting morsels:

https://physicsworld.com/a/handheld-biopen-prints-human-cartilage/

Note that this is WITHOUT major attention being paid to the field of cartilage tissue engineering. Furthermore, this article actually serves as a follow-up to this other article:

https://physicsworld.com/a/biopen-speeds-up-stem-cell-repair/

I've taken the liberty of bolding and underlining something particularly interesting about these two articles. Notice what it is? The second article, which is about the original release of the Biopen, was published on March 20th of this year, while the first one, which details successful forays into cartilage printing using the Biopen (and even upcoming attempts to surgically implant the tissue) was published this month, roughly 7 months later.

Then there's this:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181010105531.htm

The paper, for the scientifically-inclined:

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ten.tec.2018.0184

So it's now possible to 3D print connective tissue such as ligaments and tendons, which are among the soft tissue that is distended and damaged by distraction osteogenesis (ultimately resulting in loss of physical ability). The paper was published on September 14th of this year. This again follows up on the Biopen article from months before, as well as several other research papers involving printed biological tissue that have been published throughout this year.

And again I repeat that all this progress comes without any special attention paid to the field of tissue engineering. This is a natural progression. So, as I've always said, there's nothing absurd about asserting that a non-crippling, safer, better alternative to distraction osteogenesis could be as close as 10 years away, probably more like 7 or 8 if height increase had as much impetus from the (overwhelmingly male) community of short statured people who want to be taller as androgenic alopecia gets from men/women who are balding or weight loss procedures get from overweight people.

Stuff like this is the reason why bullsh*t copes like "therapy" and "acceptance" (i.e. resignation) should NEVER be suggested as "solutions" to height dysphoria or any problems involving a person's height. The community ought to be encouraging short people who have experienced heightism and/or are otherwise unhappy with their height to make as much money as they possibly can so we can all come together and help FUND research like this, so that we can ALL have a solution that doesn't involve excruciating pain and risk of being permanently crippled a la unicorn from this board.

And again I repeat that all this progress comes without any special attention paid to the field of tissue engineering. This is a natural progression. So, as I've always said, there's nothing absurd about asserting that a non-crippling, safer, better alternative to distraction osteogenesis could be as close as 10 years away, probably more like 7 or 8 if height increase had as much impetus from the (overwhelmingly male) community of short statured people who want to be taller as androgenic alopecia gets from men/women who are balding or weight loss procedures get from overweight people.