I have purposefully been avoiding these forums (old forum ) since my operation in Jan. 2014 and buried LL in the back of my mind. Really interesting to see how much things have changed in terms of technology. Willing to offer any advice/insight to those who want it.
8 CM on Femurs is absolutely fine in terms of proportions. Absolutely nobody in the real world will notice and after you get used to it you will feel really good about the way you look. Don't fixate on proportions, nobody that isn't on this forum even thinks about that stuff.
@ Movie, It is complicated. I am nowhere near my pre surgery form in terms of athletically, but there are some other factors contributing to that.
Quote from: ChangeMyLife on October 29, 2021, 04:57:52 PMHey 6CM, wanted to revive this thread since you still seem active in other threads. Can you talk about your athleticism compared to pre-surgery and why you keep mentioning it's nowhere near, but it's due to some other problem? It would help a lot. Thanks!
So now I am 8 years post op and feel absolutely fantastic. My legs are strong and have a lot of stamina. I go on strenuous hikes 3-4 times a week as my primary source of exercise. I avoided running and jumping at 100% power for many years post-op, so I could preserve the nails still in my legs and lengthen the last inch. Once I found out that the nails no longer worked, I embraced strenuous activity and within a few months almost all of my athletic ability came back. I would say I have regained around 90 percent of my explosive ability and sprinting. My jumping ability is 95-100 percent what it was pre op. Most surprisingly of all I now walk faster and have more endurance hiking uphill than I ever did before. Pre-op I was in an elite combat unit in the Army, and I believe if I had to, I would be fit enough to do it all over again now. Not sure if there have been any studies on this, but I wonder if my walking speed has increased due to my proportionally long femurs?
To update my plans, in December I will be removing my femur nails and doing deformity correction/lengthening my tibias one at a time.
Hope this answered your question!
Quote from: Stryde2021 on October 31, 2021, 02:15:02 AMHow did you determine your nails no longer worked?
I found a surgeon to remove the distal (bottom screws) and we tried retracting the nails inside my bone canals. Unfortunately they didn’t budge.
Quote from: pokemon go on November 01, 2021, 08:01:45 AMhey 6CMFemurs
what do your surgery papers from Paley mention? bilateral LL?
Bilateral femoral osteoplasty. I think stature lengthening was also mentioned in notes since my official diagnosis was “Constitutional Short Stature.”
Quote from: pokemon go on November 01, 2021, 03:59:48 PMThanks
This may not apply to you, but hypothetically if you had to convince someone that you had some deformity surgery and not LL... if you showed that person the surgery letter they would immediately find out you had LL?
Well no one would even understand the surgical notes and diagnosis unless they were a doctor, and even some doctors would be confused unless they were an orthopedist. For my second LL I am actually having deformity reconstruction. If you are doing purely cosmetic, I would just say you had osteoplasty of the knee or hip and if the person is really curious say that the angle or rotation of the bone was adjusted, and leave it that.
Quote from: Audous on November 02, 2021, 06:23:21 AMHey. Do you happen to know your speed for 100m dash? Are you still fast as pre-op or not really. Thank you.
I am probably a little slower than I was before at sprinting, but I’m fairly certain I am within the average range for a 30 year old man. But my case won’t necessarily be yours, these are factors you have to take into consideration too:
1) my primary form of exercise is hiking, walking, and other outdoorsy things, not sports that require a lot of sprinting. My cardio feels good and my legs don’t get fatigued as quickly as the other people I hike with. If I had spent these 8 years post-op dedicating myself to sprinting and basketball etc I have no idea if I would be, it just wasn’t my priority.
2) I still have the rods in. Some people swear they only felt fully recovered once they removed them.
3) I have an external tibial torsion deformity which effects my ability to push off. Even pre-op, I had a slow first step but then sped up after a few strides. I was never a zero to sixty in 3 seconds guy like your prototypical sprinter is.
4) I avoided high impact activities for many years post-op, to preserve the rods in case I wanted to relengthen.
I think if your primary goal is to sprint at 100 percent your pre-op levels and you dedicate yourself to that end, you will be able to achieve it. I have spent the last 8 years finishing college, grad school, traveling, and genuinely enjoying my life.
Quote from: Audous on November 02, 2021, 09:21:26 AMWow thank you for the analysis!
I've got a few more if you don't mind.
You said that sprinting 100 percent pre-op is possible but would this be possible if lets say I lengthened 2 segments with a total of 11cm?
Do you feel pain when sprinting or walking for a certain period of time and would this be linked to the surgery or simply because you're tired.
From these questions you are asking me, it seems like you have a lot of anxiety about returning to 100 percent. I wish there was a magic number I could give you of how much you could lengthen, but this is impossible on my end. The same way that people fret about every millimeter changing their proportions. I would look at it this way if I was in your shoes…. You have never reached 100 percent of your athletic potential. Every second you spend on this forum, is another second you could be training or working with strength coaches and dieticians to reach that athletic peak. Yet you are ok not achieving this 100 percent potential, because everything in life is a trade off. This surgery is a trade-off too. Maybe if you get it done and spend the same time you spent thinking about it training, you can get back to where you are now. Maybe you will be a tad less athletic in some ways, but shift your focus to building strength and stamina and excel in other ways or at other sports. If you go to a reputable doctor at a good hospital you will probably be guaranteed to gain back almost all of your day to day function and the rest will be up to you. My gut tells me that once you get this done or decide not to and focus on some other aspect of your life, you will quickly get over this anxiety.
I have some very minor hip pain related to the surgery and some patella-femoral pain from my torsional deformity (not related to the surgery). The hip discomfort seems to be near the proximal screws so we will see if that goes away when I take the nails out. I feel like my stamina is better than ever tbh, I don’t feel more easily tired when walking/running at all post-op.
@Antonio: I will be removing nails one at a time starting in February as I do each tibia, so yes 8 years. Doctor wants me to have a fully “good leg” for each side.
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