6 cm without Achille tendon or 9 cm?

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Quote from: IwannaBeTaller on January 27, 2017, 10:24:02 PMI don't understand why the legs would be 1.5 cms shorter than what you lengthened? Does the bone recompress again, and when does this happen?

Also, can you not measure your height while still in fixators?

I don't know in specific how to answer this question, but there is a technical reason that the doctor explained to me regarding why what you turn in the EF is always 10-15% less than the real lengthening. So since I did so far 7,5 cm, it is something around 1 cm in my case.

You will lose another 0,5 cm when the EF will be removed, but here again, I do not know the reason exactly. This is just what the doctor told me.

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If you go for femurs would be internally, maybe is easier than external fixation, but if doctor gives you the green light go for the full 9cm.

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hey cam,
i can see this decision is really difficult
you can ask the forum of course but you are going to get so many different answers here
i think you should ask Dr. Pili for contacts/email of people who have experience with AL
that is the only way to get a good idea for your decision
-zen

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Quote from: zenithian on January 29, 2017, 09:39:09 AMhey cam,
i can see this decision is really difficult
you can ask the forum of course but you are going to get so many different answers here
i think you should ask Dr. Pili for contacts/email of people who have experience with AL
that is the only way to get a good idea for your decision
-zen

I did, I contacted 4 former patience of dr. Catagni and all of them told me that after ATL they recovered 100%.

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How can you even lengthen a tendon?

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Quote from: Camillo on January 29, 2017, 02:13:22 PMI did, I contacted 4 former patience of dr. Catagni and all of them told me that after ATL they recovered 100%.

Yeah right. They probably mean they are able to walk 100%, and for them that is a full recovery.

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Quote from: RealTrump on January 30, 2017, 08:27:07 AMYeah right. They probably mean they are able to walk 100%, and for them that is a full recovery.

Why are you saying things you have no idea about.

 I contacted former Catagni patients who did ATL. All of them returned to playing sports as well (such as soccer and jogging).

 I get it that you got a  ty recovery LLcaptain, but don't make it seem as if your own  ty LL result is the norm... Well, it is if you go to the same  ty doc you went with

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I had Achille Tendon Lengthening, tomorrow will be 10 days already. I can stand and walk with no problem but I have of course some pain in the heel since I have 2 wires there. I will remove them in other 20 days. The cut is bad but I will remove the stitches in few days. So it seems everything fine, I'll keep you posted.

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The debate on whether getting to 100% of pre-op levels is even possible at all is a contentious one as there isn't statistical evidence to back it up, but I believe most people believe there is a trade off of athletic ability when considering limb lengthening alone from what we have seen.

Now, 100% with ATL is almost certainly impossible, nevermind with limb lengthening on top of that which we haven't come to a conclusion on. Logically it just cannot be the same as how it was before - the tendon will never have that elastic power again once lengthened. There have been peer reviewed studies and have been linked recently in the 'Body Builder' thread (crimson tide anecdotally went through ATL and has stated his 'push off power' is much weaker), the user Body Builder is now considering tendon shortening because of the weakness. He linked a study - showing the difference in power, muscular size, dorsiflexion etc. after an AT rupture even after tendon shortening - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3460090/.

'The duplicate measurements showed a high intraobserver reliability (r = 0.90; P = 0.012). T test paired sampled statistics showed that the operated limb had a lower peak torque than the nonoperated leg (240.9 N ± 51.9 N vs. 299.0 N ± 44.2 N; P = 0.05), but the patients did not perceive this decrease in strength as interfering with their daily or leisure activities.' - So even if the person believes they are 100%, they most likely aren't - and this is without any lengthening which undoubtedly complicates things.

And after less than a minute of searching I found this - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3178860/ which discusses how to deal with AT injury and avoiding lengthening because of the issues it causes.

'- Tendon elongation correlates significantly with clinical outcome; lengthening is an important cause of morbidity and may produce permanent functional impairment.
- Furthermore, weakness in the end-range plantar flexion after AT repair recently has been attributed to an excessive tendon lengthening during muscle contraction.
- Moreover, increases in plantar flexor muscle cross sectional area, passive stiffness, and the ability to absorb passive energy also increase.
- Once tendon lengthening has become permanent, its clinical management is often difficult.'

Nevermind the likes of Paley advising patients to avoid it at all costs unless completely necessary.

I find it humorous how people can give anecdotal evidence and someone else can come along and say 'That's anecdotal evidence and is completely wrong, here is my own completely anecdotal evidence which is completely right!'. The issue on ATL isn't a personal one and putting forward the best evidence we have and discussing it civilly without resorting to insults would be better for all of us - even if the result of the surgery are less than satisfactory as we have to be honest about results.

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Camillo - Best of luck with your recovery, please keep us updated.

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Totally agree with 682.

Tendons need to have a certain length to keep the tension of the muscles on the right degree and exert the optimum power of the muscle.
By changing this length, especially by harming the tendon with cuts, there is no way to have again the same abilities.

So it is of course much better to lengthen less and have normal working legs from doing atl to gain 2 cm more and have from moderate working legs to completely crippled if there is a massive tendon overlengthening.

Atl is a very bad surgery and I can't understand how there are respectable doctors like Catagni that they keep doing it.
And also, I can't umderstand how many patients say that they are normal after atl. Me, crimsontide and Steve (if I remember the nickname right) have completely opposite experiences and that's why I'm going to have another surgery to fix (as I can which I'm optimist that it would be a lot) the problems that atl caused me which are much much more than tibia lengthening per se.

The only procedure to reduce equinus (but not as much as atl) that seems to cause minimal problems is gastrocnemius recession.
Atl must be avoided at all costs.