Have questions for a long-term LL veteran? Ask them here!

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I had LL in 2007.  If you have any questions for me about the long-term effects of my LL, please ask them here.

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Quote from: JohnSmith on November 03, 2019, 10:59:43 PM1. Do you feel like you have as much flexibility and athleticism as your Pre-LL self?

No.  It's about 80-90%.

Quote2. Do your leg joints ever ache more than usual and do you have fears of early arthritis? I just worry about being able to do something as simple as sitting on a wooden floor without pain.

My joints do not ache and I don't have fears of early arthritis.  All the issues seem to be with the muscles, tendons, and ligaments; not in the joints' cartilage.

Quote3. How did you explain you height increase post-puberty to your friends and family? Did they believe your fib if you used one?

A few select people I told about the surgery because I had no way of hiding it from them, notably my mother.  She blabbed to a lot of other family members about it, and her lack of discretion with my secret was shocking.  So that contaminated a lot of possibilities for saying I grew.  A few people on the other side of the family whom I hardly ever saw (once every 5 years or so) noticed I had gotten taller and believed that I had grown between age 20 when they had last seen me and age 25 when they first saw me post-LL.  At least, they didn't verbally express their disbelief.

If you have a lot of friends and family that you see regularly, either tell them you're doing the surgery or ghost them and go start a new life after LL.  Or better yet, keep your social circle and don't get LL.  It's really weird for someone to get taller suddently, and people are very cognizant of others' height.  This forum wouldn't exist if height wasn't an extremely noticeable physical attribute.

Most of the time you will not get away with fibbing to anyone who knew you as a short guy, so don't try or else they'll think you're a liar as well as someone who got LL.  And keep in mind if those people know each other, the topic of your height increase will probably come up when you're not there.

Quote4. Did you get any stretch marks on your legs from the lengthening?

LL did not cause any stretch marks.

Quote5. Is there any advice you could give me that you wish you had known before getting the surgery and recovery?

It will probably take longer than you think to get back to normal, and it's very physically and mentally draining, especially during lengthening.  There's no way I could have worked or studied during lengthening, and I slept for 12 hours a night for over a year after doing LL.

Quote6. If you could talk to your younger self, would you still tell him to go forward with the surgery?

The answer is still yes, but we'll see.  I'm noticing more tightness in my legs now in my late 30s, 12 years after doing the surgery.

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$25,000

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Quote from: Sweden on November 09, 2019, 08:04:42 AMDo you know your time for sprinting 0-100 meters?

No.

Quote from: nomad13 on November 19, 2019, 07:00:05 AMWhat are the issues that you have with muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Tightness in the right ankle, and easily fatigued tibialis anteior muscles on both sides.  I feel like those are absolutely maxed out geneically and will not grow anymore.  Just walking after LL makes them work harder than a tough leg workout did before surgery.

QuoteHow frequent are pains or tightness and how severe it is, does it prevent you or cause any discomfort in your daily activities?

No pain, not very severe tightness but it's always there.  It seems to be getting a little more noticeable in my late 30s.  I've recently started stretching and purposely walking a little differently to try to improve things.  I think I had developed a way of walking that was kind of "cheating", especially for that right ankle.  I hope I don't need tendon lengthening on my right Achilles.  10 years ago I asked Dr. Peng about it, and he said it wasn't bad enough to warrant surgery.   But now I'm thinking I should look into a second opinion about getting it done preventatively at this age rather than waiting another decade or two.

QuoteAre these complications normal for everyone?

I don't know.  I wonder what my legs would be like with 5 cm instead of 7.5.

QuoteAre there any ways to undo these pains/complications after LL?

Stretching, tendon release surgery, or leg shortening I guess. 

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Quote from: Sanity on November 20, 2019, 03:05:43 PMWat were the advantages you think you got with an additional surgery after your main surgery (the IM nailing operation). Other than getting back home quicker, what other advantages you think it gave you over just the conventional standard illazarov procedure would have given. Thanks

I heard that the nail prevents the leg from getting too crooked if the device is lengthening unevenly.  Other than that, none.

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Quote from: chaseyyyeung98 on December 07, 2019, 05:53:53 AMCan you walk normally or do u walk a bit funny? When I say normally I mean as if you never had the surgery. Can somebody can tell that you had it just by looking at the way u walk.

My walk is a little different than before LL.  It's less springy.  Somewhere between natural and walking in 3" platform shoes.  But nobody has ever told me I walk funny, or implied something was wrong with my legs just from seeing me walk.

QuoteCan you run/play high intensity sports/dance/kick? Are quick sharp movements too much for your legs. Are they too stiff? How much of your athletic ability pre-lengthening have u maintained would u say?

I never wrote about my athleticism much on here in the past because I almost never play sports, but a little while ago I played 3-on-3 basketball with some middle and high school kids.  They were all shorter than me, probably 5'4 to 5'7.  I was able to run the court with them fine: I could always make it back on defense and get a hand in their face.  However, their footwork was a lot better than mine: they could get separation from me at will, so I didn't make any blocks.

It's just harder to move bigger things.  Imagine playing baseball with a bat that's 3" longer than regulation.  It's harder to swing and will go slower.  But you could use it, right?  That's a good analogy for my legs at this point.

About stiffness, that seems to be getting a little worse as time passes.  I'm planning to stretch more to alleviate that.  Honestly, I've been slacking off on my stretching for the past couple of years.

QuoteWhat is the safest method for either Tibia and Femur. External or Internal, LATN/LON? And assuming price isnt an issue, which one would u give the most height with safest recovery back to normal life

I'd imagine that the safest is full external tibias, due to being the least invasive.  Just break the leg and put a few pins in it, and that's all.  It's what I was planning to do originally in Serbia until that started to not be an option, so I went to Beijing instead and got LON, since that's what they mostly did there.  I thought of doing full external there, but the cost to stay in the hospital for 4-5 more months was prohibitive.

QuoteWho is the best and safest doctor outside the US (assuming price isnt an issue)

I don't know much about that since I'm no longer in the market for LL.  Probably Dr. Lee in South Korea.

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If by normal you mean exactly the same as before surgery, I doubt it.  You have a biomechanically different body.  All that additional distal mass would be difficult to overcome just with stretching and exercise.  At some point the body maxes out.

Torque is the issue.  The farther the end of something is from its point of attachment, it gets harder and harder to move.  Dancing and kicking are especially more difficult after LL because of the extra torque required to move the longer legs that remain attached only at the pelvis.

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Quote from: Montreal172 on December 07, 2019, 08:22:02 PMDo you believe the after-effects would have been less worst if you did the 3 inches on femur instead with Stryde for example ?

Read your entire diary man, you had one hell of a journey

Quite possibly.  I think the muscles around my tibias are maxed out in terms of how much bigger/stronger they can get.  I think the quads/glutes/hamstrings could've grown more post-op to handle the new biomechanics better.  And the calf muscles : tibia length : thigh muscles : femur length ratios probably work better the other way around as well.

But in terms of cosmetics, I think high knees look better than low knees.  Here's an old thread this just reminded me of.  Caterpillars. 

http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=2043.msg32541#msg32541

And idiosyncratic to me, I had always had really tight hamstrings, so I might have avoided a potential problem up there by doing tibias.

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I and everyone I've talked to IRL only did LON.  I don't know anything about internal femur that wasn't posted by someone else on this forum.

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You should always go to the best doctor you can afford, in my opinion.  In 2007 I had about $25,000 so my options were to pay a little for Dr. Mitkovic to do the surgery and spend the rest on living expenses in Serbia for 9 months, pay for a 5-month all-inclusive package in Beijing, or go to Egypt which would've been a bad idea.