Recently finished up a surgery for unilateral humerus LL via Precice intramedullary nail.
Curious if anyone would appreciate me keeping updates for a thread?
Best,
TP99
Apologies for the late update.
When I was younger I was diagnosed with an Aneurysmal Bone Cyst. During the repair my growth plate was injured and that caused the subsequent growth arrest, leading to a unilateral discrepancy of ~12cm.
I'm in the medical field so as I grew up I kept a close eye on the new research and surgical methods that were being presented in regard to bone lengthening. I ended up leaning towards an intramedullary nail over an external fixator. Due to circumference and length of the affected arm, the humeral nail would not fit. After further talks with my surgeon and the product reps, we decided to use the tibial nail (as that allowed for use with the smaller bone).
I had my first surgery and we achieved a max distraction lengthening of 5cm. This was then followed by another surgery with the same nail. Essentially we unscrewed the current nail, compressed it back to it's original size, then re-attached it to another segment of bone. In total this allowed for a total maximal distraction lengthening of 10cm.
The pain and paresthesias were an everyday occurrence and were most apparent during the lengthenings (3x daily). My range of motion has now been fully recovered. The arm is weight-bearing fine and I have even began working out again.
This was an absolutely life-changing procedure. My only regret is not going through with it earlier!
I'm happy to answer any questions!
You must be logged in to post a reply.
