Hi,
I am a new user, this is my first day as a registered user, although I have read many of the posts on this forum. I am a male who will be 26-27 year old when I perform this surgery, which will be 1.5 years time. I am planning to use Precice Stryde, and thinking of Dr Donghoon, if Stryde is available with him. I am asking for an opinion from more experienced members, especially those who have gone through the procedure, as to an upper and lower bound on recovery time.
My stats:
168cm
(Roughly, with a measuring tape) 48cm long femur
Planned length: 5cm MAX, and going on doctor's recommendation, willing to lower this, but preferably not below 4cm.
Method: Internal femurs, Precice Stryde (or any other better method that will come out in the future)
I am fit, never had a bone injury, and healthy.
I want to know roughly how long I can take to recover. By recovery, I refer to walking at a slow to moderate pace (not quick), without aid, for a sustained period for 30 mins straight before needing some light rest.
As I understand, for 7 days after surgery, no lengthening, then you start to lengthen 1mm a day. For me, that is a minimum of 57 days of lengthening. After that, with the Precice Stryde/new nails (heard of a precice 3.0), how long before I can move as described above? I am thinking, safely, I would need 3 weeks post lengthening. My point of reference is the below diary:
- superusercj1, who did 65mm of internal femur with Paley with Stryde in 2018, said:
"Today, about 2 weeks after lengthening, I can now go up and down stairs without holding the rails. I can walk 95% normal with a cane’s help and 80% without. The reason for this is because I’m still tight in my hamstrings and also my gluteals are super sore after walking and forcing my stride to be more narrow."
The available stats on him are: 5'3, looking to get to 5'6. 150lbs. No information is provided about his age (But I assume he is not older than me, for I consider myself relatively young for this procedure).
Relevant Info:
- 5cm is regarded as "safe" length, and ~10% of my femur length, and I am taller than the average patient for this procedure, hence I think I am in the "safe zone"
- I am young, and apparently this means my bones heal faster? (Compared to many diaries from 30+ year olds)
- I am extremely disciplined and am willing to spend 2 hrs a day 5 days a week for 6 months pre surgery to strengthen my legs and improve flexibility. I am willing to do 8 hours a physical therapy a day throughout the lengthening process.
- The technology, Precice Stryde, allows full weight bearing which allows both better therapy + shorter time to standing/walking
- Benchmarked against superusercj1 (which I know is only 1 data point), I have all the above reasons to recover as well.
Could I expect to be walking slow to moderately, with passable gait, within 90 (57 + 33) days post surgery? Thats ~ 3 months.
Hey Ghostfish,
Thank you so much for the response! And thank you for the clarification as to PRECICE and STRYDE.
I am definitely very conservative (as much as a person considering LL can be), with a personal hard limit of 5cm and a strict policy to stop lengthening, even at 1cm, if there is any significant risk of moderate to severe damage.
However, a bit more of reading has led to some concerns about internal femurs. I have read about fat embolism and DVT, and seen at least one case where they happened to a healthy, 5'7 asian male (article on Jezebel). This was under Guichet, which to my knowledge is not a bad doctor. It was also a costly surgery, if price is any indicator of quality. I am thus extremely concerned about such a complication. As I understand, the femur is a large bone, and internal methods are invasive, leading to higher likelihood of fat embolism. In a 2018 Youtube video with Dr Paley, he mentioned 4 in 100 had fat embolism of mild to moderate severity that was rectified, with no major issues. There has been a recent reddit post by Big D on this as well. Dr Paley is already the safest in the world, signifying a very real risk with internal femur methods.
I have also heard external femur methods are extremely uncomfortable and time consuming. I am considering internal/external tibia methods. Do you have any knowledge on what reaming can do to the tibia long term, and the recovery time with say, Stryde Tibia? Is the risk of fat embolism far lower?
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