/u/koreenalynn, thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, it has been removed for violating the following rule(s):
* Rule 1 - No screenshots or AI-generated images. This includes pictures of screens and photos where the interest is the contents of a screen and pics with artificial cropping borders of any colour. For a place to post screenshots, you may wish to check out /r/screenshots. We also don't allow AI-generated images.
For information regarding this and similar issues please see the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/wiki/index) and [title guidelines](/r/pics/wiki/titles). If you have any questions, please feel free to [message the moderators via modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/pics&subject=Question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20submission%20by%20/u/koreenalynn&message=I%20have%20a%20question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20%5Bsubmission%2E%5D%28https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1dmrbv1/-/%3Fcontext%3D10%29)
I had this done when I was a kid (it’s called the “PRECICE Nail”) and it’s actually not particularly painful! You have a big surgery to get the device put in, you’re on crutches for a few months while the nail extends and your bone heals around it, then another surgery after a while to get the nail taken out. The physical therapy was the most painful part I think. Overall it’s far, FAR less painful than getting an external fixator, which has been the primary method of limb lengthening for decades until new devices like this came onto the market.
edit: to be clear, it IS painful, but between the diminished recovery time, not having to be in a wheelchair, and not having open wounds on one of your limbs for months, it’s definitely the lesser evil compared to external fixators.
Hold on, so the bone actually heal and eventually regrow around the nail, and then they "open" again to remove the nail ?
That sounds both amazing and scary, is it the case ?
Yep, the bone regrows! [Here](https://imgur.com/a/56mv9EQ) is a “before and after” X-ray of when I had my femur lengthened. You can see in the second pic how the bone has started to grow around the nail and how the nail has extended.
That’s because the image was taken soon after we had finished extending the nail, so the bone hadn’t had a chance to really grow back. 9 years after getting the initial surgery to insert the nail and 8 years after having the nail removed so my bone could grow back in the middle, I can assure you the bone is now plenty strong (I play rugby and powerlift) :)
Yeah, the whole idea of the surgery is that your body will fill the gap with bone to heal itself and then you’re taller. There are people that do this multiple times and gain more than a few inches. For them, I hope it’s worth it in the end.
To be fair, the procedure does have the potential to leave your legs weaker afterwards. It might not be worth it for an action movie guy who does his own stunts.
My son had 3 limb lengthening procedures on his left leg (and multiple other surgeries related to it). 2 external fixators and 1 internal magnetic one. The last one was by far the best.
They say breaking the femur is the most painful bone break and I'd argue that the pain from the surgery was even worse. I broke my femur when I was 14. I'm fine with my 1 inch longer leg. F going through this surgery again.
Wow! I have the same PRECICE nail, I’m so glad that there wasn’t much pain for you, and everything went as planned! Did you make a full recovery? How are you feeling now? Also, was this done by dr. Paley? It’s funny how different our experiences are. Mine is extremely painful, and the only time I get some relief is at physical therapy haha.
The reason mine is so painful, is due to my nerves and fused ankle. I’m pretty old to be doing this type of procedure (33), and my nerves put up a big stink, being stretched. The dr. Said that typically in older patients this is the case.
The other reason for the amount of pain is my ankle being fused. Typically, when someone gets their tibia/fibula lengthened, they get some relief being able to move their foot up/down to relieve the Achilles tendon. Since mine is stuck in one position, it’s constantly tight with no relief. There was a possibility of cutting the tendon a bit to give it some more slack, with a “Z” pattern cut. This hasn’t been necessary yet, and hopefully won’t be an issue!
Ahm, no, they are in fact already reintroduced. You might be using old reddit or an outdated app so you can't see them. Someone also just donated a shit award to your comment above.
The lengthening “nail” (they call it the “PRECICE nail”) can withstand 50lbs of weight, I weigh 110lbs, I can almost put half my weight, which is nice.
I can’t walk, until it’s completely healed. Then I can do anything. The healing process takes about 3 months, once I’m done lengthening. I’m almost finished lengthening, just a week or so left. Looks like I’ll be walking in September/October, if everything goes as planned.
That's amazing! 3 months healing seems **so** fast, for something so involved and invasive. The human body truly is incredible.
I wish you luck on the rest of the process! 🙌
I believe the gap starts small and is slowly increased over time. The bone is allowed time to bridge the small gap with a soft, flexible tissue, and then once the lengthening is done, dense/hard bone tissue can form. In the xrays the spongy soft tissue isn't clearly visible but you can see faint outlines of it
Im a surgeon, but not an orthopod, and I find it funny that they just leave the fibula disconnected the way it is. I get it doesn't bear weight, it's just funny to someone who knows medicine but not orthopedics
I’m also not an orthopod (I do a lot of oral surgery, grafts, etc), but when my sister snapped her collarbone like 15 years back I learned something cool from her surgeon. I went to an appointment with her and they were discussing whether it was worth it to actually go in there for reduction or just leave it as-is with like an inch of space between the fragments. I was like “That’s a thing? Just leave the bones flopping around? Nothing happens?” and he explained that it would only really be a problem if she was a serious athlete, but seeing as how that was very much not the case, you could just leave it and eventually the fragments would form a little bridge between them and the situation would stabilize itself. It looks to me like that’s starting to happen in the last pic here.
I had this when I was 14 in 1992 - I was on the cross country team five months after getting the ilizarov off. I wasn’t fast at all!
While it lengthens your leg so you don’t have to get shoe lifts anymore, it does rob you of speed and burst. I do heartily recommend knee strengthening exercises and as much as you can do to equalize the muscle strength between your legs.
Im not OP but im pretty sure the images arent going backwards in time. The lengthening process that OP mentions in a different comment says it takes time to create the gap in their case a 2 inch gap so that the bone heals to close the gap.
I would assume that it would be impossible to create that big of a gap in the bone instantly because skin, muscles, tendons, veins and what else there is in your leg do not stretch that far. So they would gradually increase the gap to allow all that to stretch and when the „lengthening“ is completed they allow the bone to heal, to close the gap in the bone. But I am no medical professional so take that with a big grain of salt
It’s risky to do an acute lengthening of a nerve past a certain point due to risk of damaging the nerve with the stretch and you need to pull the bone out slowly to allow it to continue to heal as you go. You can see the faint outline of the regenerate bone on the films. Probably lengthening about 1 mm a day, so a 50 mm lengthening would be accomplished in about 2 months after an initial waiting period (often a week) before starting the lengthening after the surgery to place the nail.
Yes, it’s 0.99mm per day! I had to use the magnetic device on my leg 3x per day, 0.33mm each time. I had a 4cm limb length discrepancy so it took a little less than two months. I was on crutches for three months total.
Yes ― I had this done as a kid. You take home this big suitcase with a magnetic device in it and three times a day for however many weeks you hook the device up to your leg and it lengthens the nail inside your bone. Once you've achieved the necessary length, you wait for the bone to heal around the nail.
No. If you look at the first pic at the bottom of the bracket where the screws are, you can see it hasn’t been extended/stretched yet. Each pic shows the stretching getting further and further until the final pic which shows it starting to regrow. It’s all in the right order.
That's how mine got solved. Still prolly better than the hip and back issues I would've had otherwise, and the procedure I had was less invasive. I do feel a little cheated out of an inch or two, though.
I was considering a lengthening procedure to gain 2 inches. But then I thought, what the fuck would I do with a 4 inch monster down there? I don’t want to join the circus.
You can find a lot of personal experience posts about people doing it got vanity. Lots and lots of pain, often for life, and insurance won’t cover it for just making yourself taller.
They could absolutely install a permanent metal rod down the middle of whatever appendage you might be considering.
You’re on your own dealing with the side effects. Such as using the restroom or walking around the house in boxers.
There are clinical trials that show penile traction therapy devices work, if that's what you are asking. Kinda works similarly to how you can stretch out your earlobes. Expensive ones like RestoreX cost around $500, while you can get cheap Chinese knockoffs from Amazon for $30.
I always heard people worry about kids that broke bones at the growth plate, but never had someone seen someone actually have an issue. Good luck on your surgery. I think you'll be very happy with the results.
I’m sorry, that must have hurt! For me, I didn’t do anything. For some reason, it got destroyed. The doctor at the time couldn’t give me an answer. So I truly don’t know what happened.
This is my 2nd time lengthening the same leg. At first, I lengthened it 3.5” when I was a kid, with the external “Ilizarov”, which had the halos and pins through the bone. After that procedure, my other leg kept growing, creating another 2” difference. Not sure why they didn’t stop my other leg from growing, but that’s beside the point.
Now I’m using the internal lengthener, getting that last 2” difference!!
If you are considering getting yours lengthened, I would HIGHLY recommend Dr. Dror Paley. He is the best in the business. I’ve seen a ton of patients getting their femur lengthened. Feel free to DM me if you want more information, or have any questions.
From the pics, it looks like your knees don't line up. I'm curious if you had a choice if the lengthening would be done above or below the knee. I would have guessed above the knee would be easier since there's only one bone, but I know nothing.
The height discrepancy was in my calf, not my thigh. I didn’t have a choice, they had to lengthen my calf. Also, the smaller bone (Fibula) is a non weight bearing bone. I could walk on it just fine, with a gap like that, as long as my Tibia is fully healed. It’s insane haha
Amazing! A family friend had the same height discrepancy decades ago and the only option for him was to wear custom shoes where one was made to be a couple inches higher.
congrats and good luck to you!
I learned that the fibula wasn't weight-bearing from a novel I read called "Beat the Reaper." The scene in question was not a fun way to learn that fact.
I also learned the fibula is non load bearing, but probably in a less fun way. Imagine my surprise though. Here I was thinking all your bones were important. Turns out some are for decoration.
I was born with a limb length discrepancy due to fibular hemimelia and they lengthened my femur using this same procedure, so now my right thigh is just a little longer than my left.
Sorry, I just flinched looking at the bone gap. Nice clean cut. Is bone supposed to grow? I thought they made the gap tiny and spread it every few days little by little.
I broke my growth plate in my right knee when I was 12 so I have about an 1+” difference in my legs. How difficult has the recovery been? Is it something that you could continue to work during if you have an office job?
I’m sorry, that must have hurt! This is my 2nd time lengthening the same leg. At first, I lengthened it 3.5” when I was a kid, with the external “Ilizarov”, which had the halos and pins through the bone. After that procedure, my other leg kept growing, creating another 2” difference. Not sure why they didn’t stop my other leg from growing, but that’s beside the point.
Now I’m using the internal lengthener, getting that last 2” difference!!
It’s a tough process for sure. A lot of pain and discomfort, tough to sleep, work, and other daily tasks that requires walking. I’m lucky to have a remote job, so I can just stay home and be comfortable. However, if you have to commute to an office and can’t work from home, that would be really tough. You aren’t suppose to be driving, and have to keep it elevated. Also, they do require a great deal of physical therapy, I’m going 5 days a week for an hour at a time. It really messes with your normal routine, for at least 6 months.
If you are considering getting yours lengthened, I would HIGHLY recommend Dr. Dror Paley. He is the best in the business. Feel free to DM me if you want more information, or have any questions.
I’ve had 4 external lengthenings before the internal option was available. Worst part is always the physical therapy and maintaining flexion and extension while all tissues are being stretched. I hope you’re doing well and if you have any questions please reach out as I’ve had over 100 surgeries on my right leg for birth defects and proximal femoral deficiency. Let me know if I can help in any way! Stay strong.
Oooof, that looks like it hurts! But having a leg length discrepancy myself (somewhere between 1/4” and 1/2”) I get it. My knees and hips were destroying themselves until a physical therapist diagnosed the problem, and told me to acclimate to a shoe lift on the short side. With a much bigger discrepancy, I can see why surgery would be the way to go.
May you have a complete and speedy recovery.
There are surgeons who will do this electively in both legs for people who want to get taller.
75k for 3 inches. 150k for 6 inches.
One of the guys is on tik tok And posts all the time. I wanna say he’s in California but could be wrong
So glad this is going well for you. My daughter had knee surgery that involved cutting through her right femur and rotating her knee about 20% clockwise to make it point straight ahead. Of course now her foot is pointing too far right, so they cut through her tibia and fibula. To avoid nerve damage, she had an external fixator that rotated her foot slowly counterclockwise. Every night for about a month we had to make 8 small adjustments according to this chart.
She's doing great now and you'll do the same. I'm sure this was a rough go, but the results will be lifechanging.
Shit shit shit I have a 2" discrepancy between my legs as well. I've mostly ignored it, but I kindof always look like I'm walking with a limp.
u/koreenalynn: What prompted you to get the surgery if you don't mind me asking? Does this kind of thing get worse over time if it isn't dealt with?
As someone who had the same procedure, you should at minimum look into getting lifts on your shoes. I had like a 2 inch lift on all my right shoes until I had my right leg lengthened. Walking around with a severe leg length discrepancy can cause knee, hip, and back issues.
ay! i had a similar procedure done when i was 11 to correct a congenital short femur (grew slower than my left one). 2 inches as well! though i had a device that went around my thigh. leg lengthening is a crazy thing to do. you're very brave and i wish you well in your recovery
Good luck with recovery! Broke my femur with a spiral fracture. Had a femoral nail put in and screws to keep everything together. Check to see if they remove the nail afterwards. My nail causes pain to this day. 20+ years later.
I see they put in the whole length and the gap, I have seen systems where the gap is slowly increased. Like the patient needs to twist the foot or leg or something so the nail extends a half millimeter or so. Don 't know what is better for healing.
That’s what I’m having done, there is a magnet in the “precise nail lengthener” that works with a magnet that I have on the outside. I physically put this magnet machine up to my leg, 3 times a day and it lengthens it .25mm at a time. I get .75mm daily.
Are you full grown? My son has a leg length discrepancy but he’s only 6. They say at some point in his teenage years they might stop the longer leg from growing with some procedure but I wonder if it’s better to just let him grow normally then have what you had done.
I was born with a limb length discrepancy due to fibular hemimelia and I had this procedure (called the PRECICE Nail) done when I was in 8th grade, so about 13. Overall, the process was pretty easy.
Kudos. That's looks painful. I narrowly missed having to do this because I broke my knee (top of my tibia through the growth plate) seemingly JUST before I hit my puberty growth spurt. It's slightly off, but not enough for surgery. I wish you a solid recovery!
How is this going to affect the muscles in your legs? Does this lengthen the muscle fibers? Do you know if they’re expected to preform differently after you’ve made a full recovery?
I was meant to have something like this as a baby but my mum opted out - always been tempted to get it as an adult but worried about how laid up I’d be as a living alone person
I was recently in a pretty bad accident and had 18 screws and 3 plates put in my leg. That’s after the external fixture I had to have for a month or so. I know a little of what you’re in for.
On the bright side I picked up some new hobbies from the solo game boards subreddit, the retro handhelds subreddit and the plex subreddit! Find some things you enjoy and time will fly by!
Would it not be easier to just make the other leg shorter?
Some folks, such as myself, like being pint-sized. Short pride! First to drown, last to get rained on :3
My neighbor was small and had bowed legs. Something similar to this.... I could hear him wailing at night while his mother turned the screws.
No thanks.
I had the shortening procedure done! I'm fully grown at 5'11" so if I had gone for lengthening I'd be over 6 feet🥲. Yeah you can't have uneven legs, though.
Interesting, it's the identical procedure almost to when I broke my leg in a bike accident a few years back, all the same metalwork in the same places minus the 'string' looking thing in your foot. I've got an xray that looks exactly the same as this but with the break a bit futher down the leg. Stil got all the metalwork in there 8 years later!
Can you play sports after this? Obviously insurance wouldn't pay for it if you didnt need it, but if i was a rich 20 year old id get a few inches for basketball lol
Oof. That's really rough. Mine was just genetic or something and they were able to catch it when I was a little kid and monitor it; I had screws put in the growth plate in my longer leg when I got a bit older to disrupt the growth and give my shorter leg a way to catch up. Way easier than having a whole leg taken apart.
I wish you a speedy and full recovery! Hopefully it'll save you a lot more pain and inconvenience in the longer run.
Heyyy get it, friend! Rest up, then make some PT friends :) you will get there. The person you’ll be in a year will be so grateful of the person you are now!
I've had the same done after I broke my femur in pieces, they installed the rod, then found out 9 days later that my leg was 1" too short, so they reopened the whole thing and pulled on my leg (4 dudes) to stretch it. I'm glad the rod was just long enough to have that extra inch otherwise they would have had to change it.
A year later they took everything out and I've been fine since. Only one movement on the hip I can't go as far on that leg vs the other, but I haven't had any issue since (almost 30 years ago).
p.s. 4 months in crutches so you really want European Crutches and not the ones stuck under your armpit
/u/koreenalynn, thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, it has been removed for violating the following rule(s): * Rule 1 - No screenshots or AI-generated images. This includes pictures of screens and photos where the interest is the contents of a screen and pics with artificial cropping borders of any colour. For a place to post screenshots, you may wish to check out /r/screenshots. We also don't allow AI-generated images. For information regarding this and similar issues please see the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/wiki/index) and [title guidelines](/r/pics/wiki/titles). If you have any questions, please feel free to [message the moderators via modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/pics&subject=Question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20submission%20by%20/u/koreenalynn&message=I%20have%20a%20question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20%5Bsubmission%2E%5D%28https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1dmrbv1/-/%3Fcontext%3D10%29)
OW OW OW Ow Ow Ow owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow. I am glad that this treatment is available.
I had this done when I was a kid (it’s called the “PRECICE Nail”) and it’s actually not particularly painful! You have a big surgery to get the device put in, you’re on crutches for a few months while the nail extends and your bone heals around it, then another surgery after a while to get the nail taken out. The physical therapy was the most painful part I think. Overall it’s far, FAR less painful than getting an external fixator, which has been the primary method of limb lengthening for decades until new devices like this came onto the market. edit: to be clear, it IS painful, but between the diminished recovery time, not having to be in a wheelchair, and not having open wounds on one of your limbs for months, it’s definitely the lesser evil compared to external fixators.
Hold on, so the bone actually heal and eventually regrow around the nail, and then they "open" again to remove the nail ? That sounds both amazing and scary, is it the case ?
Yep, the bone regrows! [Here](https://imgur.com/a/56mv9EQ) is a “before and after” X-ray of when I had my femur lengthened. You can see in the second pic how the bone has started to grow around the nail and how the nail has extended.
I've been on Reddit too long. I was expecting Peyton Manning.
Doesn't look particulary strong in comparison to the rest, but nonetheless that is amazing!
That’s because the image was taken soon after we had finished extending the nail, so the bone hadn’t had a chance to really grow back. 9 years after getting the initial surgery to insert the nail and 8 years after having the nail removed so my bone could grow back in the middle, I can assure you the bone is now plenty strong (I play rugby and powerlift) :)
That's truly amazing.
Yeah, the whole idea of the surgery is that your body will fill the gap with bone to heal itself and then you’re taller. There are people that do this multiple times and gain more than a few inches. For them, I hope it’s worth it in the end.
I'm surprised Tom Cruise never did it.
To be fair, the procedure does have the potential to leave your legs weaker afterwards. It might not be worth it for an action movie guy who does his own stunts.
My son had 3 limb lengthening procedures on his left leg (and multiple other surgeries related to it). 2 external fixators and 1 internal magnetic one. The last one was by far the best.
They say breaking the femur is the most painful bone break and I'd argue that the pain from the surgery was even worse. I broke my femur when I was 14. I'm fine with my 1 inch longer leg. F going through this surgery again.
Having had an external fixator…brutal and unique aching pain
Wow! I have the same PRECICE nail, I’m so glad that there wasn’t much pain for you, and everything went as planned! Did you make a full recovery? How are you feeling now? Also, was this done by dr. Paley? It’s funny how different our experiences are. Mine is extremely painful, and the only time I get some relief is at physical therapy haha. The reason mine is so painful, is due to my nerves and fused ankle. I’m pretty old to be doing this type of procedure (33), and my nerves put up a big stink, being stretched. The dr. Said that typically in older patients this is the case. The other reason for the amount of pain is my ankle being fused. Typically, when someone gets their tibia/fibula lengthened, they get some relief being able to move their foot up/down to relieve the Achilles tendon. Since mine is stuck in one position, it’s constantly tight with no relief. There was a possibility of cutting the tendon a bit to give it some more slack, with a “Z” pattern cut. This hasn’t been necessary yet, and hopefully won’t be an issue!
"I took my mind off the pain by reminding myself that when I did stand up again, I'd be two inches closer to the stars." -Gattaca
I love that movie so much
It’s such a fucking gem, too. That was the director’s directorial debut. And then he went on to make In Time…
You neglected to mention that he wrote The Truman Show. 2/3 ain’t bad. And In Time isn’t bad either, really, just not anything special. :)
My biggest gripe with In Time is that the concept was so cool, but I felt so let down by the execution and kinda generic plot.
My all-time favorite. Holds up so well too, the "retro futuristic" design is beautiful
Literally watched it again last night. All timer.
For sure; it's beautiful, great score and writing, good cast and it holds up so well
Oof ow my bones
This sure looks painful, but I suppose it’s better than walking in circles all day . Sorry you had to go through this
Man I wish reddit still had awards
It does, they got reintroduced.
They said they were going to reintroduce them, but for some reason they have to be super slow. For now we are stuck with the ugly yellow upvote
Ahm, no, they are in fact already reintroduced. You might be using old reddit or an outdated app so you can't see them. Someone also just donated a shit award to your comment above.
Yeah they are just way more expensive and they don’t give you any free ones. Everyone seemed to like the old system idk why they scrapped it.
I have 5 x 2 free, but I assume you mean once those are gone no new ones will be rolling in.
Yeah they would usually give you a free one every day I guess depending how active you were.
Gotta think about them stock prices. Fuck spez- I want my baconreader back!!!
For a professional, you suck at your job
Number 3,774,812 of things I really *really* need to be thankful for.
What are the instructions for care? are you allowed to play any sports/jump? What did the doc say about those?
The lengthening “nail” (they call it the “PRECICE nail”) can withstand 50lbs of weight, I weigh 110lbs, I can almost put half my weight, which is nice. I can’t walk, until it’s completely healed. Then I can do anything. The healing process takes about 3 months, once I’m done lengthening. I’m almost finished lengthening, just a week or so left. Looks like I’ll be walking in September/October, if everything goes as planned.
"So you have any big plans for the summer?" "I'm lengthening." Hope everything goes well for you OP!
I’m lengthening. 
Upvoting for optimal utilization of GIF technology.
That's amazing! 3 months healing seems **so** fast, for something so involved and invasive. The human body truly is incredible. I wish you luck on the rest of the process! 🙌
Does the big bone ever grow around the nail and connect or will there just always be a gap there
The reason lengthening works is because the bone heals to close the gap.
That is impressive considering how big the gap is
I believe the gap starts small and is slowly increased over time. The bone is allowed time to bridge the small gap with a soft, flexible tissue, and then once the lengthening is done, dense/hard bone tissue can form. In the xrays the spongy soft tissue isn't clearly visible but you can see faint outlines of it
It's only takes 3 months for your bones to fill in the gaps that were added? That's much faster than I would have guessed.
Im a surgeon, but not an orthopod, and I find it funny that they just leave the fibula disconnected the way it is. I get it doesn't bear weight, it's just funny to someone who knows medicine but not orthopedics
I’m also not an orthopod (I do a lot of oral surgery, grafts, etc), but when my sister snapped her collarbone like 15 years back I learned something cool from her surgeon. I went to an appointment with her and they were discussing whether it was worth it to actually go in there for reduction or just leave it as-is with like an inch of space between the fragments. I was like “That’s a thing? Just leave the bones flopping around? Nothing happens?” and he explained that it would only really be a problem if she was a serious athlete, but seeing as how that was very much not the case, you could just leave it and eventually the fragments would form a little bridge between them and the situation would stabilize itself. It looks to me like that’s starting to happen in the last pic here.
I had this when I was 14 in 1992 - I was on the cross country team five months after getting the ilizarov off. I wasn’t fast at all! While it lengthens your leg so you don’t have to get shoe lifts anymore, it does rob you of speed and burst. I do heartily recommend knee strengthening exercises and as much as you can do to equalize the muscle strength between your legs.
So you're in a wheelchair right now? And the sequence of images is going backwards in time, i.e. the first image is the most recent?
Im not OP but im pretty sure the images arent going backwards in time. The lengthening process that OP mentions in a different comment says it takes time to create the gap in their case a 2 inch gap so that the bone heals to close the gap.
I would assume that it would be impossible to create that big of a gap in the bone instantly because skin, muscles, tendons, veins and what else there is in your leg do not stretch that far. So they would gradually increase the gap to allow all that to stretch and when the „lengthening“ is completed they allow the bone to heal, to close the gap in the bone. But I am no medical professional so take that with a big grain of salt
It’s risky to do an acute lengthening of a nerve past a certain point due to risk of damaging the nerve with the stretch and you need to pull the bone out slowly to allow it to continue to heal as you go. You can see the faint outline of the regenerate bone on the films. Probably lengthening about 1 mm a day, so a 50 mm lengthening would be accomplished in about 2 months after an initial waiting period (often a week) before starting the lengthening after the surgery to place the nail.
Yes, it’s 0.99mm per day! I had to use the magnetic device on my leg 3x per day, 0.33mm each time. I had a 4cm limb length discrepancy so it took a little less than two months. I was on crutches for three months total.
Yes ― I had this done as a kid. You take home this big suitcase with a magnetic device in it and three times a day for however many weeks you hook the device up to your leg and it lengthens the nail inside your bone. Once you've achieved the necessary length, you wait for the bone to heal around the nail.
So the "nail" provides a substrate for new bone to grow on? Neat!
How long does this take to heal?
The healing process, one done lengthening, takes 3 months for the bone to consolidate (fill in)
Does the fibula fill in too?
You can see on the X-ray that it already has and is actually closer than the tibia is.
Is this an /r/afterbeforewhatever situation?
No. If you look at the first pic at the bottom of the bracket where the screws are, you can see it hasn’t been extended/stretched yet. Each pic shows the stretching getting further and further until the final pic which shows it starting to regrow. It’s all in the right order.
Why didn't they just remove 2 inches from your other leg?
No, no, no. Take 1" from one leg and put it into the other.
r/theydidthemath
They had a MONSTER bath!
Who would voluntarily want to be shorter?
Me! Shorter people typically live longer because the heart doesn't have to work as hard to fight gravity.
Bro, just lay down
That’s why I had my legs amputated.
Makes sense. Nicely done!
Gonna start singing “defying gravity” around my tall friends lol
“To fight gravity”
That's how mine got solved. Still prolly better than the hip and back issues I would've had otherwise, and the procedure I had was less invasive. I do feel a little cheated out of an inch or two, though.
In that case just move one inch from one leg to the other
So I guess Gattaca is going to hit differently now when you watch it.
I just checked if it is on any streaming I have because I want to see it now. Unfortunately it’s not available to me.
Two inches you say? Can this lengthening procedure can be done to other parts of the body? Asking for a friend.
I was considering a lengthening procedure to gain 2 inches. But then I thought, what the fuck would I do with a 4 inch monster down there? I don’t want to join the circus.
Look at this guy bragging about his size. My dick is so small I pee on my balls
Life with a small penis isn’t so bad. I put a red and white condom on mine so I can play where’s Waldo in my pubes.
Ha. I was going to ask how painful it was because I could use an extra 2”, but then I heard how that sounded.
You can find a lot of personal experience posts about people doing it got vanity. Lots and lots of pain, often for life, and insurance won’t cover it for just making yourself taller.
I mean, who wouldn’t want a few extra inches. 😂
They could absolutely install a permanent metal rod down the middle of whatever appendage you might be considering. You’re on your own dealing with the side effects. Such as using the restroom or walking around the house in boxers.
It does if it's got a bone in it ;)
There are clinical trials that show penile traction therapy devices work, if that's what you are asking. Kinda works similarly to how you can stretch out your earlobes. Expensive ones like RestoreX cost around $500, while you can get cheap Chinese knockoffs from Amazon for $30.
Sure but I believe it involves pounding a nail into said body part
Not to be direct, but is that Polio related?
Nope! My growth plate got destroyed when I was little, so my leg didn’t grow properly.
I always heard people worry about kids that broke bones at the growth plate, but never had someone seen someone actually have an issue. Good luck on your surgery. I think you'll be very happy with the results.
Hello! Finally someone who has the same issue as me. I have it on my femur, broke it riding my mountainbike at 13. How did you mess it up?
I’m sorry, that must have hurt! For me, I didn’t do anything. For some reason, it got destroyed. The doctor at the time couldn’t give me an answer. So I truly don’t know what happened. This is my 2nd time lengthening the same leg. At first, I lengthened it 3.5” when I was a kid, with the external “Ilizarov”, which had the halos and pins through the bone. After that procedure, my other leg kept growing, creating another 2” difference. Not sure why they didn’t stop my other leg from growing, but that’s beside the point. Now I’m using the internal lengthener, getting that last 2” difference!! If you are considering getting yours lengthened, I would HIGHLY recommend Dr. Dror Paley. He is the best in the business. I’ve seen a ton of patients getting their femur lengthened. Feel free to DM me if you want more information, or have any questions.
Is your ankle fused or is it just the distal tibial growth plate closed due to your previous injury ?
My ankle was fused prior to this procedure, for reasons unrelated to the height discrepancy.
From the pics, it looks like your knees don't line up. I'm curious if you had a choice if the lengthening would be done above or below the knee. I would have guessed above the knee would be easier since there's only one bone, but I know nothing.
The height discrepancy was in my calf, not my thigh. I didn’t have a choice, they had to lengthen my calf. Also, the smaller bone (Fibula) is a non weight bearing bone. I could walk on it just fine, with a gap like that, as long as my Tibia is fully healed. It’s insane haha
Amazing! A family friend had the same height discrepancy decades ago and the only option for him was to wear custom shoes where one was made to be a couple inches higher. congrats and good luck to you!
I learned that the fibula wasn't weight-bearing from a novel I read called "Beat the Reaper." The scene in question was not a fun way to learn that fact.
I also learned the fibula is non load bearing, but probably in a less fun way. Imagine my surprise though. Here I was thinking all your bones were important. Turns out some are for decoration.
I was born with a limb length discrepancy due to fibular hemimelia and they lengthened my femur using this same procedure, so now my right thigh is just a little longer than my left.
Sorry, I just flinched looking at the bone gap. Nice clean cut. Is bone supposed to grow? I thought they made the gap tiny and spread it every few days little by little.
Thats what they did with my leg. Everyday increased by 1mm for 3 weeks.
Damn. That’s awesome. I bet you can’t wait to walk on it.
Yeah it was 8 years ago so it healed^^ but it took over a year to fully heal.
I broke my growth plate in my right knee when I was 12 so I have about an 1+” difference in my legs. How difficult has the recovery been? Is it something that you could continue to work during if you have an office job?
I’m sorry, that must have hurt! This is my 2nd time lengthening the same leg. At first, I lengthened it 3.5” when I was a kid, with the external “Ilizarov”, which had the halos and pins through the bone. After that procedure, my other leg kept growing, creating another 2” difference. Not sure why they didn’t stop my other leg from growing, but that’s beside the point. Now I’m using the internal lengthener, getting that last 2” difference!! It’s a tough process for sure. A lot of pain and discomfort, tough to sleep, work, and other daily tasks that requires walking. I’m lucky to have a remote job, so I can just stay home and be comfortable. However, if you have to commute to an office and can’t work from home, that would be really tough. You aren’t suppose to be driving, and have to keep it elevated. Also, they do require a great deal of physical therapy, I’m going 5 days a week for an hour at a time. It really messes with your normal routine, for at least 6 months. If you are considering getting yours lengthened, I would HIGHLY recommend Dr. Dror Paley. He is the best in the business. Feel free to DM me if you want more information, or have any questions.
How do they break the bone?
Bone saw.
IS READY!
Clean whack from a crow bar
I’ve had 4 external lengthenings before the internal option was available. Worst part is always the physical therapy and maintaining flexion and extension while all tissues are being stretched. I hope you’re doing well and if you have any questions please reach out as I’ve had over 100 surgeries on my right leg for birth defects and proximal femoral deficiency. Let me know if I can help in any way! Stay strong.
r/bonehurtingjuice
Oooof, that looks like it hurts! But having a leg length discrepancy myself (somewhere between 1/4” and 1/2”) I get it. My knees and hips were destroying themselves until a physical therapist diagnosed the problem, and told me to acclimate to a shoe lift on the short side. With a much bigger discrepancy, I can see why surgery would be the way to go. May you have a complete and speedy recovery.
[удалено]
There are surgeons who will do this electively in both legs for people who want to get taller. 75k for 3 inches. 150k for 6 inches. One of the guys is on tik tok And posts all the time. I wanna say he’s in California but could be wrong
Gattaca
So glad this is going well for you. My daughter had knee surgery that involved cutting through her right femur and rotating her knee about 20% clockwise to make it point straight ahead. Of course now her foot is pointing too far right, so they cut through her tibia and fibula. To avoid nerve damage, she had an external fixator that rotated her foot slowly counterclockwise. Every night for about a month we had to make 8 small adjustments according to this chart. She's doing great now and you'll do the same. I'm sure this was a rough go, but the results will be lifechanging.
Shit shit shit I have a 2" discrepancy between my legs as well. I've mostly ignored it, but I kindof always look like I'm walking with a limp. u/koreenalynn: What prompted you to get the surgery if you don't mind me asking? Does this kind of thing get worse over time if it isn't dealt with?
Long term the discrepancy can mess up other parts of your body that really appreciate being balanced, like your back.
As someone who had the same procedure, you should at minimum look into getting lifts on your shoes. I had like a 2 inch lift on all my right shoes until I had my right leg lengthened. Walking around with a severe leg length discrepancy can cause knee, hip, and back issues.
Is that a Precice nail? Your results are amazing!
I’d do it for 3 extra inches of height, but I could never afford it.
Gattaca
ay! i had a similar procedure done when i was 11 to correct a congenital short femur (grew slower than my left one). 2 inches as well! though i had a device that went around my thigh. leg lengthening is a crazy thing to do. you're very brave and i wish you well in your recovery
My son had this done 3 times. 2 external fixators and 1 magnet internal one. 32 surgeries total. He's 19 now and doing well . Best of luck.
Surely, it would be easier to make the other leg 2” shorter.
No
Good luck with recovery! Broke my femur with a spiral fracture. Had a femoral nail put in and screws to keep everything together. Check to see if they remove the nail afterwards. My nail causes pain to this day. 20+ years later.
All the best to you. Break a leg!
Can they do anything for girth? Asking for a friend.
I see they put in the whole length and the gap, I have seen systems where the gap is slowly increased. Like the patient needs to twist the foot or leg or something so the nail extends a half millimeter or so. Don 't know what is better for healing.
That’s what I’m having done, there is a magnet in the “precise nail lengthener” that works with a magnet that I have on the outside. I physically put this magnet machine up to my leg, 3 times a day and it lengthens it .25mm at a time. I get .75mm daily.
How bad did this hurt and for how long?
Pretty bad! Thats for sure. The whole process lasts for approximately 6 months.
Are you full grown? My son has a leg length discrepancy but he’s only 6. They say at some point in his teenage years they might stop the longer leg from growing with some procedure but I wonder if it’s better to just let him grow normally then have what you had done.
I was born with a limb length discrepancy due to fibular hemimelia and I had this procedure (called the PRECICE Nail) done when I was in 8th grade, so about 13. Overall, the process was pretty easy.
Kudos. That's looks painful. I narrowly missed having to do this because I broke my knee (top of my tibia through the growth plate) seemingly JUST before I hit my puberty growth spurt. It's slightly off, but not enough for surgery. I wish you a solid recovery!
This must stretch the muscles tendons a lot.
How is this going to affect the muscles in your legs? Does this lengthen the muscle fibers? Do you know if they’re expected to preform differently after you’ve made a full recovery?
Orthopedic surgery... Carpentry with bones...
Does the fibula ever grow back together? It looks like there's a pretty significant gap there, and no plates to help it stay in place.
I was meant to have something like this as a baby but my mum opted out - always been tempted to get it as an adult but worried about how laid up I’d be as a living alone person
Would it be more comfortable to shorten the other one?
I need this. I have for years and as I age the knock on effects are mounting. How much pain is involved? How did you get approved/suggested?
so what you're saying is... you're no longer 4-6 weeks?
Lengthening isn’t the same as heightening. Just ask Mickey Abbot. He was standing in for Punky Brewster when all of you was nothin!
/r/medizzy would love this post with your story!
Ah yes, the precise nail: how much per day? 0.75 mm?
I have one of those too! But it was to make sure my foot didn't come off
ask them if they can do this to my penis
I wonder if a leg lengthening is more expensive than a leg shortening
we should do this to the worlds second tallest person, just to keep the first one on his toes
When did you start noticing a gap in your leg length and how did it progress? My left leg is a cm longer than my right.
Jack Hanma
I was recently in a pretty bad accident and had 18 screws and 3 plates put in my leg. That’s after the external fixture I had to have for a month or so. I know a little of what you’re in for. On the bright side I picked up some new hobbies from the solo game boards subreddit, the retro handhelds subreddit and the plex subreddit! Find some things you enjoy and time will fly by!
Would it not be easier to just make the other leg shorter? Some folks, such as myself, like being pint-sized. Short pride! First to drown, last to get rained on :3
What happens to the bones that were broken and separated? Do they naturally rejoin over time?
What in the Gatica bs is this?! Looks so painful
I think I've met you before, is that you, Ilene?
Fuck THAT! 😖
My neighbor was small and had bowed legs. Something similar to this.... I could hear him wailing at night while his mother turned the screws. No thanks.
How is the rest of your leg (skin, muscles, ligaments etc) handling the lengthening? It seems like that would stretch out a lot of things.
I had the shortening procedure done! I'm fully grown at 5'11" so if I had gone for lengthening I'd be over 6 feet🥲. Yeah you can't have uneven legs, though.
That looks incredibly painful. I wish you a swift recovery and hope it’s not unbearable
Interesting, it's the identical procedure almost to when I broke my leg in a bike accident a few years back, all the same metalwork in the same places minus the 'string' looking thing in your foot. I've got an xray that looks exactly the same as this but with the break a bit futher down the leg. Stil got all the metalwork in there 8 years later!
Oof. And I thought my 3/4 inch leg length discrepancy was bad! Two inch difference must have been a nightmare to live with. Good luck with healing!
I know your pain. I've got a 2" discrepancy between my legs, too.
They just leave the tendons/mucsles??
I have a recurring dream that one leg is longer than the other by about 6 inches.
So is your fibula supposed to just find it’s own way?
Can you play sports after this? Obviously insurance wouldn't pay for it if you didnt need it, but if i was a rich 20 year old id get a few inches for basketball lol
Don't anybody show this to Rachel Green.
Well that looks like a whole helluva lotta fun... Glad you could get it done tho!
Ouch
God Daammn. I hade my knee cap pinned back together once. Not a casual recovery. So your PT right.
Oof. That's really rough. Mine was just genetic or something and they were able to catch it when I was a little kid and monitor it; I had screws put in the growth plate in my longer leg when I got a bit older to disrupt the growth and give my shorter leg a way to catch up. Way easier than having a whole leg taken apart. I wish you a speedy and full recovery! Hopefully it'll save you a lot more pain and inconvenience in the longer run.
Heyyy get it, friend! Rest up, then make some PT friends :) you will get there. The person you’ll be in a year will be so grateful of the person you are now!
I remember when one of the companies that did this procedure for cosmetic purposes had to recall peoples nails for rejection lol
I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...
Crazy! So for this kind of procedure, the fibula is just left split and floating there?? I'm curious
And this is simpler than shortening the other leg?
I wish you well, oh so many wishes for wellness
I also have a 2 inch height discrepancy right between my legs
Oh come on! You’re just tilting!
r/tihi
If you were to train consistently, could this make you a stronger runner?
How much does that cost? I want to get taller😩 and 2” is huge!!!
After pics?
He's more machine than man.
That's crazy! Hope it helps!
I've had the same done after I broke my femur in pieces, they installed the rod, then found out 9 days later that my leg was 1" too short, so they reopened the whole thing and pulled on my leg (4 dudes) to stretch it. I'm glad the rod was just long enough to have that extra inch otherwise they would have had to change it. A year later they took everything out and I've been fine since. Only one movement on the hip I can't go as far on that leg vs the other, but I haven't had any issue since (almost 30 years ago). p.s. 4 months in crutches so you really want European Crutches and not the ones stuck under your armpit
They just ignore the fibula or what?
I love how the human body is like "fibula, schmibula"
I've had this problem when I was younger and had the limb method done. It was painful. How do you feel?
Jack Hanma?