DoingItForMe's Precice 2 Internal Femurs with Dr. Paley

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Quote from: fivefive on January 15, 2018, 12:35:47 PMDIFM, if you don't mind, if money wasn't a concern, why did you choose 8cm in the femurs ($90k), which is much more difficult to recover from than 6cm, instead of doing Simultaneous Lengthening of tibias+femurs (staggered 3 weeks apart) for $180k?

Looks like DIFM hasn't been around in ~3 weeks, and in the meantime I've read more of his diary, in particular this:

Quoteeven if the tibia surgery was free, I wouldn't do it. I have the money to do tibia LL right now, but I rather burn the money than go through LL surgery again. It is just not worth it to do LL if you're going to end up in debt or if you're already average height. And I'm writing this because not only am I still in pain, but I just wasted a year of my life for this surgery, and I missed out on a lot of things because of it. If I could go back in time, I'd have told myself to not do it. I wish I had a great recovery like some of the other LL veterans. But I guess I drew the short straw. Too late now for me to undo my mistake. But it's not too late for some of you to reconsider forgetting LL and moving on with your life.

That doesn't address my question - why didn't DIFM do the two surgeries simultaneously, and lengthen only 6cm in the femurs and 5 in the tibias? That's more than the 8cm he got in the femurs, and the recovery would've been much better if he stopped at 6 in the femurs. Pain wouldn't be double - most of it would overlap. Less time would've been lost as well. He'd look more proportional. I still don't understand why he chose to do femurs only. Maybe he didn't know/think of the femurs+tibias option?

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Quote from: Body Builder on January 18, 2018, 11:47:30 AMMy proportions are relatively good but to be even better I need femur LL because now my tibias look likg while my femurs not.
So with another LL both my segments will look proportionate compare to each other and although my torso will look short for my feet, my shoulder width will help to look ok.
I know that nked I'd look a little weird but nothing too much. With clothes on I'd look perfect, much better that with my initial height.

The only reason I still don't do femur LL is money.
I believe that in about 2 years I'll have all the money I need (40-50k euros) but unfortunately now I don't have even the half.
If I had the money I'd do LL next week. I am very determined but unfortunately not rich enough.

how much did you lengthen?

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Quote from: Body Builder on January 18, 2018, 11:47:30 AMIf I had the money I'd do LL next week. I am very determined but unfortunately not rich enough.

In general, I think it's worth delaying the surgery until you get the money to pay for a top doctor and do both tibias+femurs if you need more than 6cm of total height, especially if you're young enough.

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Quote from: fivefive on February 09, 2018, 11:09:44 PMLooks like DIFM hasn't been around in ~3 weeks, and in the meantime I've read more of his diary, in particular this:

That doesn't address my question - why didn't DIFM do the two surgeries simultaneously, and lengthen only 6cm in the femurs and 5 in the tibias? That's more than the 8cm he got in the femurs, and the recovery would've been much better if he stopped at 6 in the femurs. Pain wouldn't be double - most of it would overlap. Less time would've been lost as well. He'd look more proportional. I still don't understand why he chose to do femurs only. Maybe he didn't know/think of the femurs+tibias option?

Doing tibias and femurs at the same time is absolutely brutal, femurs are much easier to live with than tibia, recoveries seem faster as well. I can see how someone would only want to do femurs.

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Quote from: CaptainAmerica on February 10, 2018, 11:17:11 PMDoing tibias and femurs at the same time is absolutely brutal, femurs are much easier to live with than tibia, recoveries seem faster as well. I can see how someone would only want to do femurs.

IAmReady's experience was pretty brutal indeed at 31yo, but Vitruvius at 52yo had a much better time. I've read both diaries and what stood out as different was:

• Vitruvius stopped at 1.85" in the tibias (4.7cm). IAmReady went to 5.5cm and at one point slowed lengthening to 0.25mm/day.
• IAmReady had the surgeries back to back - femurs after stopping lengthening on the tibias. That didn't seem to reduce the pain. Vitruvius had the staggered 3 weeks apart as Paley advises to prevent fat embolism. Overlapping them that way halved the downtime and the amount of painkillers (with risk of liver damage). Because femurs lengthen and consolidate faster, they caught up with the tibias just about when the tibias were done lengthening.
• Vitruvius had trained pre-op "at race level" - "Before the operation I raced in triathlons, mountain biked, and I was an avid skier.   I’m now back to riding, swimming, trail running, weight lifting with my legs". I don't recall IAmReady mentioning his pre-op training.

Pros for QLL:

• IAmReady and everyone who followed his diary were super impressed with how good the proportions looked
• Vitruvius was able to return to close to 100% athletic ability, even at 52yo

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Quote from: DoingItForMe on July 18, 2017, 08:47:14 PMI still have a limp, but I think the screws of the precice nails are sticking out of the femur head and causing me to me limp, because it is irritating my soft tissues when I walk. But the limp is less noticeable now I think. I'm starting to run more normally as well. Before my run is kind of weird. What helped was that I started running again at the gym a few miles a day. Ultimately I do want to remove the rods so that I can walk normally again hopefully. I'm still not comfortable posting my x-rays. I can describe them if you want, but I don't think it's necessary to post them.

Yes, my case doesn't seem normal. The gap should have been smaller faster. Noticed that the other Paley patients I was with had faster consolidation. They lengthened less (7 cm), but I doubt that had an effect, since even if the gap was 7 cm instead of 8 cm, it still wouldn't have connected by now.

I'm in my late 20s/early 30s. I don't smoke. Never have. I wasn't active in the gym during consolidation phase (i.e. still in crutches), and yet that was around the time I had the most growth. Problem was that all that growth on my femur was on the inner side of my leg. There was barely any growth on the outer side of my legs. I was active in the gym after I was able to walk again, though. I swam a lot throughout.

I'm only taking Vitamin D and Calcium right now. Before that I was taking the bone supplements that Paley recommended. It was basically Calcium, Magnesium, Silicone and some other stuff. I didn't take any HGH or anything else.

I have been using bone simulators. Been using Exogen 4000+. I stopped when I realized that the growth doesn't seem affected by it at all. Confirmed this after I stopped using it for half a year, and the growth was the same rate. Might start using it just for the hell of it, since I paid hundreds of dollars for the two units. The first unit ran out of batteries after 200 uses, so did the second one, but I replaced it with a new $40 battery bought online and now it's at 400 uses and still running.

Maybe some of each of those things had a small effect on bone growth, but I think Paley is right when he says that putting pressure on the bones will stimulate bone growth faster. I suspect this because all the growth is on one side of my femur. And it happens to be on the same inner thigh area of both femurs. So I suspect that the weight of my body is relying more on the inner side of my femur than the outer side for both my legs and that's why all the growth is there. And my right leg, which is the more dominant leg, consolidated faster, too. So that further proves my theory.

So my advice for those doing LL is to try to put more weight onto your bones as early as possible - meaning that even during lengthening and consolidation, you should be standing often.

I hope the limp has gone away completely since he made this post. It's one of my favorite diaries in here.

If former Paley patients ever come back to the forums and read posts like this, I'd like to know their impressions of Stryde and how they think it'd have affected them (like people such as OYG already shared here).

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Quote from: OverrideYourGenetics on February 18, 2018, 11:50:38 PMIAmReady's experience was pretty brutal indeed at 31yo, but Vitruvius at 52yo had a much better time. I've read both diaries and what stood out as different was:

• Vitruvius stopped at 1.85" in the tibias (4.7cm). IAmReady went to 5.5cm and at one point slowed lengthening to 0.25mm/day.
• IAmReady had the surgeries back to back - femurs after stopping lengthening on the tibias. That didn't seem to reduce the pain. Vitruvius had the staggered 3 weeks apart as Paley advises to prevent fat embolism. Overlapping them that way halved the downtime and the amount of painkillers (with risk of liver damage). Because femurs lengthen and consolidate faster, they caught up with the tibias just about when the tibias were done lengthening.
• Vitruvius had trained pre-op "at race level" - "Before the operation I raced in triathlons, mountain biked, and I was an avid skier.   I’m now back to riding, swimming, trail running, weight lifting with my legs". I don't recall IAmReady mentioning his pre-op training.

Pros for QLL:

• IAmReady and everyone who followed his diary were super impressed with how good the proportions looked
• Vitruvius was able to return to close to 100% athletic ability, even at 52yo

It was just bad luck for me. I put in more time and effort  than any other patient at the Paley Institute during the time I was there. Perhaps Vitruvius went at a time where he was able to get more attention from the doctors. I have extremely wide feet that did not fit in the lazy one size fits all dorsiflexion boot that they provided. The reason why the Paley Institute offers a custom fitted boot is because I demanded it. If I wore it from the start I would have had a much easier time. There was also a complication that the doctors did not pick up until my femur surgery consultation- the fibula consolidated while the tibia was still lengthening causing my legs to bow. I had no choice but to do the surgeries back to back without a gap because of this complication.  The Paley institute was extremely busy during the time I was there and I felt I deserved more attention than I received. In the end, everything has worked out. I recently removed my rods and I’m recovering. My life is better than it ever was and I don’t regret a single thing except that I wish I had come up with the money sooner.

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Hi Iamready. Glad to know you are doing great. It was unfortunate you deleted the diary due to the trolls but it was one of the best diaries on here.

From what little I know, DIFM had a decent result too, but he somewhat regrets having done the procedure. Eventually it is all about the mindset. LL is a little too expensive in every sense and even with great results, only the ones who have done it know how hard it is.

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DIFM, if you ever read this, did you have the precice rods removed? Did your bone gap ever fully heal?

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Any update?