DoingItForMe's Precice 2 Internal Femurs with Dr. Paley

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Hi DoingItForMe,

I stayed at Homewood suites for my consultation last month, and the information packets Dr. Paley's staff sent me still say the price of Homewood is $70 - do you know when the price changed? (Or maybe it's due to the season, I believe in busy times they increase the price, is what it said in the packet).

Also, are you walking normally now, or is there still a perceptible impairment to your gait? If you are walking normally, how many months post-op were you able to start walking normally?

Thanks.

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By tightness, I mean that my leg muscles are constantly flexing and tightening, even though I'm simply standing. For example, if I stand right now and you poke my thighs, it'd feel rock hard. The kind of aches I have are not something you can simply ignore. My legs feel really sore like someone beat them up or it just went through a very rigorous gym routine.

Quote from: DragonTurtle on December 29, 2015, 11:00:47 AMHi DoingItForMe,

I stayed at Homewood suites for my consultation last month, and the information packets Dr. Paley's staff sent me still say the price of Homewood is $70 - do you know when the price changed? (Or maybe it's due to the season, I believe in busy times they increase the price, is what it said in the packet).

Also, are you walking normally now, or is there still a perceptible impairment to your gait? If you are walking normally, how many months post-op were you able to start walking normally?

Thanks.
I heard it from a patient staying at Homewood that they were going to up his hotel fees. The change supposedly happened in December, possibly because of seasonal since Winter is the busiest time for them, and possibly because the patient stayed there for 6 months already.

No, I'm not walking normally. There's still a hip sway. I could try to force myself to walk normally, but it gets really tiring after while. Imagine it like s*cking in your gut - for some reason s-u-c-king is censored in this forum. You can do it briefly, but eventually you tire out and go back to hip swaying. Someone said that I look like a penguin.

A patient who exercised and walked a lot every day lost his hip sway after just 2 weeks after he got the OK for walking without crutches. He was around 6-7 month post-op. I'm at month 6 post-op right now and I still have hip sway even after 3 weeks of walking without crutches. I think it'll take another month or two before the hip sway is completely gone. Possibly longer than that before I can walk up and down stairs normally. I've been going up and down stairs one step at a time instead of alternating steps with each leg. My legs are just really weak right now. I know that I'm getting stronger each day though - albeit slowly. I do notice that every once in a while, I'm able to do something I couldn't do before like go up and down stairs without holding onto the handrail. So I'm optimistic about my recovery. It just takes a lot of patience at this point.

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Did you ever feel uncomfortable after you returned your normal life(casual clothes/going out or even maybe something like going pool) about your femurs being too long compared to your body?(8 cm is a huge amount after all)
And im sorry if you alredy answered a similar question like this.I have read your diary but i dont remember something like that.

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Quote from: Peaceout on December 30, 2015, 09:36:28 PMDid you ever feel uncomfortable after you returned your normal life(casual clothes/going out or even maybe something like going pool) about your femurs being too long compared to your body?(8 cm is a huge amount after all)
And im sorry if you alredy answered a similar question like this.I have read your diary but i dont remember something like that.
yea, it looks weird in the mirror. It makes my tibias look too short and my knees look too low compared to where I imagine they should be.

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Quote from: DoingItForMe on December 31, 2015, 02:06:33 PMyea, it looks weird in the mirror. It makes my tibias look too short and my knees look too low compared to where I imagine they should be.
Will you do anything about this?Like going another round for tibias or is it tolerable?Or maybe can you hide it with clothes?what do you think?

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Out of the patients you know, who lengthened the shortest amount and what was his/her recovery like?

Do you regret doing 8cm?

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Quote from: Uppland on December 31, 2015, 03:12:05 PMOut of the patients you know, who lengthened the shortest amount and what was his/her recovery like?

Do you regret doing 8cm?
I only know about the ones who finished while I was still there. I don't know what happened to the ones who are still in the middle of doing it. But the shortest was around 7 cm due to a bad angled cut on the femur by Dr. Paley. He had the ability to go to 8 cm and had the best recovery I could tell out of everyone, but only had to stop 1 cm short because of a mistake that Dr. Paley made. He cut the bone at an almost 45 degree angle instead of a 90 degree horizontal cut. He admitted that he screwed up but refused to give a refund or any kind of compensation. Thumbs down for Paley in my book for doing that.

I will not know if I regret doing 8 cm until after I can walk normally and not have any pain in my legs. If doing 8 cm is what caused permanent pain in my leg, then yes, I regret it. If not, then I'm okay with the disproportionate legs, because height is more important to me. I was pretty proud of being able to get to the full 8 cm.

Quote from: Peaceout on December 31, 2015, 02:30:45 PMWill you do anything about this?Like going another round for tibias or is it tolerable?Or maybe can you hide it with clothes?what do you think?
Absolutely will not be doing tibias, because I'm still feeling pain in my legs from femurs even 6 months post-op. My legs are significantly weaker. I used to be able to leg press 550+ lbs. I don't know the actual limit, because the machine topped off at 550 lbs. Now I can't even walk up and down stairs because my 150 lb weight is too much. I'm not going to go through this again. I'm still below average height, but I don't care anymore. My recovery is turning out worse than the other patients and worse than I hoped for.

I can hide with jeans. I look absolutely fine with jeans or pants on. With shorts, it's also fine as long as I lower the shorts a bit to cover up how long my femurs are. By tricking people into thinking that my torso is longer, people will think my femurs are shorter than they actually are. This fixes the proportions and with clothes on, you will not be able to tell that I had LL. When I put on 1 inch lifts + 1 inch soled sneakers and pull my jeans all the way up, then it becomes noticeable that my legs are longer than they should be. Again, lowering my pants help with the proportions. Even general, nobody will notice the disproportion with clothes on. If you're nked, they will notice.

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Do you regret doing it with Dr. Paley ? You obviously paid a premium price and you obviously hoped for a premium recovery but you said that so far it is not happening. If you could go back in time, would you choose..Guichet, or Monegal, or somebody else for example ?

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Quote from: aspirant185 on December 31, 2015, 08:33:14 PMDo you regret doing it with Dr. Paley ? You obviously paid a premium price and you obviously hoped for a premium recovery but you said that so far it is not happening. If you could go back in time, would you choose..Guichet, or Monegal, or somebody else for example ?
The problem is that I don't know whose fault it is for me to still have pain for this long. Other patients only have minor aches at this point. So it could very well be that my body is rejecting the 8 cm and I pushed my legs too far. But that's not a fault of my choosing, because I've done all the stretching and recommended exercises. I'm hoping that by the time Dr. Paley gives me the OK to walk without crutches, then the pain will all go away. My guess is that I'd have the okay either in January or February - or 7-8 months post-op.

The patient who had a bad angled cut obviously regrets doing it with Dr. Paley, though. He originally planned on doing tibias with Dr. Paley, but will do it with Dr. Guichet instead. I don't know anything about Dr. Monegal, but Dr. Guichet seems to have a great reputation on both forums, but of course some of his patients had problems, too. I don't think any doctor has perfect results every time. This surgery is just a gamble and anything can happen to you.

Right now I don't know if I would have chosen someone else to do the surgery. If the pain goes away eventually even if it takes a few more months, I'd be happy with the results. If it doesn't go away, then instead of going back in time to choose another doctor, I would choose to not have this surgery in the first place.

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Hey Doing it! Thanks for your descriptive story of your LL with Paley. I have a couple questions for you: seeing as you have regular scheduled x-rays monthly, have you disclosed your LL operation to your family physician? (From my understanding, you have to be referred to x ray specialists By Your Regular physician) and how much did everything cost you? From operation to your stay in Florida. Thanks man.