Delayed consolidation

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Quote from: marathonrunner on October 02, 2020, 10:49:01 AMOh I had a lot of complications haha. Sorry I should have mentioned.

Actually my last surgery was around mid of Feb this year.

And the consolidation was probably at 1-2% only for right leg, left leg was a bit more maybe like 5%.

So you can say I consolidated 90%+ of 5.7-5.8cm from then to now.

And I would say stitch out was around end of Feb, so really all the walking and stuff I did I around beginning to mid March.

So Let's say we count at beginning of March to now for 5.7-5.8cm consolidation, start to finish.

I would say that is not bad 7+ months for tibia 5.7-5.8cm from basically nothing to almost full finished.

It was only 1 year 2 months because Aug - Feb, I was dealing with tons of complications.

Honestly.. I don't know how much vitamins would help. I do know protein helps a lot though so that was where I put my focus. Protein and walking (putting pressure on the legs).

Hi marathonrunner,

Was your complication due to your doctor (Dr. Singh correct?) not executing the surgery properly? And then you had to get this corrected by Dr. Lee in Korea? Do you think you would've had a proper consolidation and a smooth process if you had gone to a reputable doctor in the first place?

-brondo

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Yea that's the gist of it.

I can only guess but I think consolidation would have been faster if the bone was growing while lengthening every day vs lengthening fully and then trying to grow the bone.

That is just my guess after talking to others who have done it.

For reputable doctors, yes it will be safer, but then again someone with as much experience as Lee, my left tibia is bent/curved. I asked another doctor for his opinion and yea it aint straight. Which is weird because Lee does LON all the time so moving from LON to regular IM nails should be a walk in the park for him, so I can only guess as to why he didn't do it properly.

But yes to answer if it is a smoother consolidation process with a reputable doctor, yes I would think so, at least for doctor's who are hands on from start to end. There are 'reputable' doctors who do the surgery and then off you go with take home instructions or getting your own PT or what not. So a bit hard to answer, but if I was completely new to LL, I think yes a reputable doctor who can guide you from start to finish would make it smoother.

But now that I have done tibia, I think in my opinion it is possible for me to do femur without staying full time at the hospital. Since I know approximately what to do and what not to do.

So if I do go to Doctor XYZ and they offer like those hospital stay packages and what not, I would probably only pay for 1 month's worth of stay. Surgery + 2 weeks pre stitch out + 2 weeks post stitch out and doing the PT stretches there for a month. I would then do it myself at home for the remaining time.

But that is just me personally given my experience to date.

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Quote from: marathonrunner on October 02, 2020, 05:08:37 PMYea that's the gist of it.

I can only guess but I think consolidation would have been faster if the bone was growing while lengthening every day vs lengthening fully and then trying to grow the bone.

That is just my guess after talking to others who have done it.

For reputable doctors, yes it will be safer, but then again someone with as much experience as Lee, my left tibia is bent/curved. I asked another doctor for his opinion and yea it aint straight. Which is weird because Lee does LON all the time so moving from LON to regular IM nails should be a walk in the park for him, so I can only guess as to why he didn't do it properly.

But yes to answer if it is a smoother consolidation process with a reputable doctor, yes I would think so, at least for doctor's who are hands on from start to end. There are 'reputable' doctors who do the surgery and then off you go with take home instructions or getting your own PT or what not. So a bit hard to answer, but if I was completely new to LL, I think yes a reputable doctor who can guide you from start to finish would make it smoother.

But now that I have done tibia, I think in my opinion it is possible for me to do femur without staying full time at the hospital. Since I know approximately what to do and what not to do.

So if I do go to Doctor XYZ and they offer like those hospital stay packages and what not, I would probably only pay for 1 month's worth of stay. Surgery + 2 weeks pre stitch out + 2 weeks post stitch out and doing the PT stretches there for a month. I would then do it myself at home for the remaining time.

But that is just me personally given my experience to date.

Thanks for responding. What is going to happen to the curve in your tibia? Does Dr. Lee know about it and will he fix it?

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Dr Lee knows. Dr. Lee kept telling me its fine its fine, the curve is fine.

The curve is around 5-7 degrees depending on how you measure it. So it is not terrible.

But for everyday life I can feel it. The way the left foot hits the ground, going down stairs, sometimes even just standing, I can feel the difference since for the last 30+ years I've been using my legs 1 way and now the angle has change enough to notice daily.

Will he fix it? He can, if I pay more lol. He won't fix it for free for sure. Gotta open the skin, break the bone again, remove a section in the back (as it is curved backwards) make it straight, put on an external fixator again and wait for the 2 parts of the bone to heal into 1. It would be much faster though as it is the same as healing a broken bone, maybe 2-3 weeks tops.

But its gonna cost another XX amount of money and then gotta pay for those 2-3 weeks stay in the hospital again and pay for flights and everything. It's just such a hassle, especially now given COVID, I can't fly back to the country where I am residing if I leave.

So yea. I told him face to face several times make it straight, make it straight, make it straight please in all the consultations I had with him. Even right before my last surgery I said PLEASE DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE IT STRAIGHT. Because I know there are consequences to a bone not being straight and it's going to cost more money to fix if it isn't.

My guess is he wasn't prepared with the right nail, right before surgery I saw him going through a box of nails, it didn't seem like he ordered one specifically for me. So the type of nail he used was not the same as other LON patients. I dunno, maybe because I wasn't his original LL patient since I was a corrective case? Dunno and I don't want to speculate.

All I can say is the end result = curved bone which is unlike his other LON patients. Whether I will fix it or not depends on how much it keeps bothering me.

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Quote from: marathonrunner on October 04, 2020, 05:44:24 AMDr Lee knows. Dr. Lee kept telling me its fine its fine, the curve is fine.

The curve is around 5-7 degrees depending on how you measure it. So it is not terrible.

But for everyday life I can feel it. The way the left foot hits the ground, going down stairs, sometimes even just standing, I can feel the difference since for the last 30+ years I've been using my legs 1 way and now the angle has change enough to notice daily.

Will he fix it? He can, if I pay more lol. He won't fix it for free for sure. Gotta open the skin, break the bone again, remove a section in the back (as it is curved backwards) make it straight, put on an external fixator again and wait for the 2 parts of the bone to heal into 1. It would be much faster though as it is the same as healing a broken bone, maybe 2-3 weeks tops.

But its gonna cost another XX amount of money and then gotta pay for those 2-3 weeks stay in the hospital again and pay for flights and everything. It's just such a hassle, especially now given COVID, I can't fly back to the country where I am residing if I leave.

So yea. I told him face to face several times make it straight, make it straight, make it straight please in all the consultations I had with him. Even right before my last surgery I said PLEASE DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE IT STRAIGHT. Because I know there are consequences to a bone not being straight and it's going to cost more money to fix if it isn't.

My guess is he wasn't prepared with the right nail, right before surgery I saw him going through a box of nails, it didn't seem like he ordered one specifically for me. So the type of nail he used was not the same as other LON patients. I dunno, maybe because I wasn't his original LL patient since I was a corrective case? Dunno and I don't want to speculate.

All I can say is the end result = curved bone which is unlike his other LON patients. Whether I will fix it or not depends on how much it keeps bothering me.

Wow dude. Dr. Lee just went down a few notches in my book. Still think he is a good doc, but that just seems terrible he wasn't able to make is straight. I hope it doesn't cause you too many problems. I don't know much about anatomy, but I'm thinking you might have to get that fixed down the line. All the best to you marathonrunner.

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Thanks man. Yea most likely down the line gonna have to make some adjustments to it.

I haven’t tried yet to run or sprint but given how it affects just going down stairs I think if I do want my athleticism back to 100% or as close as possible I will probably have to undergo 1 more surgery to get it straight. I just hope the length doesn’t change, if I cut the bone again and make adjustments there’s no guarantee the length will be the same after it heals.

The joys of LL lol.

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In my opinion if you r gonna go for another surgery then you should go with TSF , it is a software controlled fixator to fix the alignment and it is 100 % accurate . It is weight bearing and you can go anywhere with it . Total duration for the fixator is until bone consolidation which may vary (avg duration is 4 to 5 months) .
Or they can put the TSF fixator and align your bone with software and then put IM nail ( but the problem here is that for 2 to 3 months partial weight bearing and IM nail will be there for at least a year and one more surgery to take it out )
If there is a length issue and if you comfortable with a scar then u might need to take a small part of bone out .
It’s just my opinion !!

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Thanks Machine. I didn’t know about the software controlled fixator, that’s interesting, learn something new everyday.

For sure I will take a look at this. Not sure how it’ll work since my bone is basically done consolidating and I need to remove bone instead of grow it but yea interesting thanks.

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U have a pic of this "curved bone"?

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http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=64813.msg171716#msg171716

There should be photos in the link above.