Cross lengthening in st petersburg russia

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Hey Jim_dabarber so you went back to  for lengthening phase? are you visiting local orthopedic doctor? how are you doing now?

Did you take time off from work ?
hope everything is ok


I'm thinking about flying back to my country after done the LON surgery and go back to work during the lengthening phase, in that case i need to get a referral from my family doctor and find a orthopedic doctor for check ups, it's not easy! it seems risky.

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Hey frost,
how wide is your frame, can you sort of cover it with pants?
And how much mobility you have during distraction? Do you think you can drive a car?

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Quote from: Big Decision on March 03, 2018, 03:58:26 AMHey Jim_dabarber so you went back to  for lengthening phase? are you visiting local orthopedic doctor? how are you doing now?

Did you take time off from work ?
hope everything is ok


I'm thinking about flying back to my country after done the LON surgery and go back to work during the lengthening phase, in that case i need to get a referral from my family doctor and find a orthopedic doctor for check ups, it's not easy! it seems risky.
Yes for the lengthening phase i came home and then returned to Russia for correction and frame removal. Im doing way better now than i was after coming back. I had to distract 1cm extra in Russia as doing LATN on my tibia i was going to lose height gained and i had to compensate for that. In doing so i lengthened to fast and developed ballerina foot. Im currently working hard on stretching everyday to get rid of it and its pregressing but very slowely. I also got nerve damage so sleeping has been terrible as the pain increases at night. I had nerve conduction tests done last week and next week i go in for the results. Hopefully its nothing serious. Yes i been out of work since nov 26. Working would be impossible for me as the job i did involved me on my feet and carrying heavy stuff all day.

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30 days post frame removal and im still having pain. Mainly because of nerve damage and ballerina foot. Im finally able to put my foot at a 90 degree angle but the pain from stretching my calf and achilles is really painful. Even worse than the lengthening itself from LL. Dorsiflexion is terrible. Im praying that things get better soon. Although im sure that once im fully consolidated and walking around that ill see results way faster. My femur is doing really good actually. No pain at all only when i work on my knee rom but thats because of tight quads but ive managed to get my knee rom to about a 120 degrees which is a great improvement from 60 degrees after frame removal. Another month and im confident ill regain my full range of motion. Ill attach some xrays that were taken 10 days ago.

https://imgur.com/gallery/D2K7B

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Sorry to hear about the nerve injury, most likely related to the lengthening too fast. Hope that the test results are in your favor.

By the way, which nails did you decide to go with?

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Quote from: Android on March 09, 2018, 08:31:35 PMSorry to hear about the nerve injury, most likely related to the lengthening too fast. Hope that the test results are in your favor.

By the way, which nails did you decide to go with?
Thanks android. Yes hopefully i get good news! I went with the russian nails.

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Hey Jim_dabarber, I hope you are feeling better now,

Did you break any pin during distraction or did you have any infection?

Breaking pin is one thing I'm worry about,

Do you think the doctor you visited there in US can replace it? Are they familiar with Illizarov?

How did you take time off from work?
Thanks for sharing your experience.

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Quote from: Big Decision on March 15, 2018, 12:04:42 PMHey Jim_dabarber, I hope you are feeling better now,

Did you break any pin during distraction or did you have any infection?

Breaking pin is one thing I'm worry about,

Do you think the doctor you visited there in US can replace it? Are they familiar with Illizarov?

How did you take time off from work?
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Im doing much better thanks! Ballerina is the only issue now just slowly getting better.

No i didnt break any pins during distraction. I had mostly bolts and a couple pins so my frames were really stable. Yes i had pin site infection twice but i took antiobiotics and it resolved quickly.

Yes my orthopedic couldve replaced them if needed. They are familiar with ilizarov just the frames they use are different than the one dr kulesh used.

I have FMLA which lets me take 3 months off work a year if im not able to work and then i have LOng Term Disability which kicked in after the 3 months of fmla. So right now im actually on Long Term Disability leave.

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By the way, I searched far and wide on this forum and the old one, but I believe you're going to be the first person 165cm and over to do less than 5cm in a segment, much less both of them. I'm really looking forward to see how good your recovery is going to be two years from now.

All the cases I've seen of <5cm were in shorter people who had trouble with lengthening more than that.

Everyone who undergoes LL tries going for the most they can, for obvious reasons, but since there's so few cases of people doing smaller amounts, we can't know for sure if it isn't much better.

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Hi man, important things first: thanks a lot for your diary. A lot of fresh and very useful informations. It's nice to feel in a sort of mini guys family who share these very bad, and often overwhelming feelings. Most people will say to you JUST learn to accept yourself, but only short people know how it feels going over every day comments about your height, as if for us it's a joke, an easy thing, or anything to make constantly jokes about. Now I would want to ask to you: you've spent in st petersburg a bit of time at this point, on a purely yours personal estimation, how much do you think it would cost 1) to do a cross lateral lengthening, in st elizabeth, (all surgeries related costs) and 2) rent a house once you're able to with people cooking and taking care of you for the whole process? And how long would it take at its fastest yet properly done? I plan to do the same things as you did, I'm 21 and started working one month ago, if everything goes well I should be able to afford it in 1-2 years 23 would still be a decent age I suppose... wish you all the best my friend, looking forward to hearing from you. Take care!!