Femur-Lengthing with Dr. Betz March 2021

Member

Posts: 219

Joined: Jul 2021

Posted on Jul 9, 2021, 12:01 pm

#1

What´s up guys,

been reading on this forum for quite a while now and thought I would do a little reverse diary on how my LL with Dr. Betz went, so if anyone has questions i might be able to help out a few ppl over here.

Quick Background
height neurosis has been a constant issue for me these past 10 or so years. I´m 28 now and as soon as I entered adulthood I was confronted with the problems of being relatively short (i was 172cm). Now some might say "that´s not short", well compared to other people who are even shorter it might not be but let´s be completely honest, being from germany one of the tallest countrys in the world, I was basically looking up to everyone (chicks included) most of my life, which really sucks. Otherwise being a pretty confident guy with a good physique (did bodybuilding for these past 10+ years), being short really defeated me kind of and just didn´t fit into my life. I would have changed that a long time ago but somehow it took me a long time to find out about the possibility of LL, it was in 2019 and I was instantly hooked on the idea of changing my life and fuLL Forumilling that dream to be taller. Nothing would stop me from doing it, not the pain, not the money, from the moment I found out its possble I considered it done.

Now being from germany my obvious decision was to go with Dr.Betz for many reasons. To name a few he is one of the most experienced surgeons in that field, he is relatively close by, the costs were not outragious compared to other doctors (LL is a financial burden anyway), when I had my consultation in May 2020, he and the staff were very friendly and I trusted them almost instantly.

Long story short it took me a year to get financially set to do the surgery so my booked date was March, 12 of 2021.

I´m now 1 week into consolidation phase, so instead of laying out my entire story (which would probably take days to write), just feel free to ask me ANY questions regarding the surgery with betz and the experience I went through since then. I try to share my experience to the best of my ability on here.

Some Stats:
28 Years old
starting height: 172cm
reached height: 182,5cm
Nail: betzbone
Currently: 1 week into consolidation phase

Edit Post

What´s up guys,

been reading on this forum for quite a while now and thought I would do a little reverse diary on how my LL with Dr. Betz went, so if anyone has questions i might be able to help out a few ppl over here.

Quick Background
height neurosis has been a constant issue for me these past 10 or so years. I´m 28 now and as soon as I entered adulthood I was confronted with the problems of being relatively short (i was 172cm). Now some might say "that´s not short", well compared to other people who are even shorter it might not be but let´s be completely honest, being from germany one of the tallest countrys in the world, I was basically looking up to everyone (chicks included) most of my life, which really sucks. Otherwise being a pretty confident guy with a good physique (did bodybuilding for these past 10+ years), being short really defeated me kind of and just didn´t fit into my life. I would have changed that a long time ago but somehow it took me a long time to find out about the possibility of LL, it was in 2019 and I was instantly hooked on the idea of changing my life and fuLL Forumilling that dream to be taller. Nothing would stop me from doing it, not the pain, not the money, from the moment I found out its possble I considered it done.

Now being from germany my obvious decision was to go with Dr.Betz for many reasons. To name a few he is one of the most experienced surgeons in that field, he is relatively close by, the costs were not outragious compared to other doctors (LL is a financial burden anyway), when I had my consultation in May 2020, he and the staff were very friendly and I trusted them almost instantly.

Long story short it took me a year to get financially set to do the surgery so my booked date was March, 12 of 2021.

I´m now 1 week into consolidation phase, so instead of laying out my entire story (which would probably take days to write), just feel free to ask me ANY questions regarding the surgery with betz and the experience I went through since then. I try to share my experience to the best of my ability on here.

Some Stats:
28 Years old
starting height: 172cm
reached height: 182,5cm
Nail: betzbone
Currently: 1 week into consolidation phase

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C

chasing_higher_dream

Member

Posts: 493

Joined: Feb 2021

Posted on Jul 9, 2021, 2:30 pm

#2

First of all congrats @ LegendKiller on finishing your lengthening phase.

Going from 172 cm to 182,5 cm is very much impressive at the same time insane.
It would require a lot of patience, determination, and suffering to lengthen 10,5 cm

I have few questions:
- What was your tibia to femur ratio before?
- After 3cm, at what rate were you lengthening?
- How many times and for how long were you doing physiotherapy/stretching per day?
- Weren't you afraid that your athletic ability would deteriorate if you lengthen too much?
- How are your proportions looking now? Especially when you sit on a chair, does the femur comes out too far?

Any tips for me, I am currently too in the lengthening phase.

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L

LegendKiller

Member

Posts: 13

Joined: Jul 2021

Posted on Jul 9, 2021, 3:01 pm

#3

Quote from: chasing_higher_dream on July 09, 2021, 02:30:01 PMFirst of all congrats @ LegendKiller on finishing your lengthening phase.

Going from 172 cm to 182,5 cm is very much impressive at the same time insane.
It would require a lot of patience, determination, and suffering to lengthen 10,5 cm

I have few questions:
- What was your tibia to femur ratio before?
- After 3cm, at what rate were you lengthening?
- How many times and for how long were you doing physiotherapy/stretching per day?
- Weren't you afraid that your athletic ability would deteriorate if you lengthen too much?

- How are your proportions looking now? Especially when you sit on a chair, does the femur comes out too far?

Any tips for me, I am currently too in the lengthening phase.

First of all, thank you very much my friend. Indeed it did require a load of patience, dedication and pain tolerance, def. the hardest time of my life and even though I know what pain and dedication feels like from bodybuilding for so long, i still haven´t experienced anything like that yet. God knows I cried like a bitch a few times and my Girl had to lift me up. completely honest here.

To answer your questions:

1. My femurs were very short compared to my tibias. According to betz it was close to 90% ratio which is pretty uncommon and made me more confident in being able to lengthen 10cm without it really looking stupid (of course it does now look a little bit funky because the muscle isn´t back yet but that will subside once i´m able to put the muscle back on)

2. I lengthened at a rate of 1mm per day, normally betz patients from that point on scale back to 0,75mm per day but I stayed at 1mm until like 6cm, at that point to be completely honest I could not take the pain and discomfort anymore and also scaled back to 0,75mm per day. Looking back I don´t recommend doing it my way and going a little slower from 3cm on but in the end its also a decision by feel, my body told me to keep going until it told me to fk off and then I listened and scaled back.

3. I did a lot fo stretching from the beginning, 3-4 times a day mainly adductors, quads and hams, when I was released from the hospital I had one more week off and then immediately started working 9 hours again 5 days a week, which surely isn´t optimal. This also made it difficult to do enough PT, which I kinda slacked on for the most part of lengthening, but to be honest during lengthning days itself were so hard that I would not have been able to do 1-2 hours a day of PT anyway, the tension and discomfort for me personally was just to much. I also got covid in may which did not help my situation either.

4. Honestly I didn´t think much about that. For me it was mainly about gaining a lot of height, I know that every person on here has a different opinion regarding athletic ability and how much of it you can gain back, for me personally I´m confident that with training and time I can get back to a point where I am still pretty athletic despite the amount I lengthened. of course soft tissue is weak now and will be for quite some time but I don´t know why people think it can NEVER get back to normal or even better. pretty much everything in our body can adapt over time depending on your training and the work you put in. Thats my take on it. I´m not expert but when it comes to training, I know a thing or two. After all you are stretching the soft tissue but you (if everything goes right) are not DAMAGING it, which is a big difference.

5. I think my proportions still are very good. Now bare in mind, I lost a lot of muscle up top, I completely lost my ass and my Quad muscle, its natural that RIGHT NOW I look kinda funny. Skinny with really long quads and no muscle. But you have to keep in mind the bigger picture here. For me its all about what I will look like once the muscle is back which has a lot to do with "looking right" and proportions.
Of course my femur looks pretty long right now when sitting down but it also does that in people with naturally long femurs so Im completely okay with that.

Hope that helped a little bit. What doctor did you do the surgery with and what method? How much have you lengthened yet?
My best advice would be to be prepared for everything, you will have days that are fine and other days you´ll regret everything. Just keep in mind why you want to be taller. This is kind of a rollercoaster ride so just stay on top of stretching and PT and take it day by day.

Edit Post

Quote from: chasing_higher_dream on July 09, 2021, 02:30:01 PMFirst of all congrats @ LegendKiller on finishing your lengthening phase.

Going from 172 cm to 182,5 cm is very much impressive at the same time insane.
It would require a lot of patience, determination, and suffering to lengthen 10,5 cm

I have few questions:
- What was your tibia to femur ratio before?
- After 3cm, at what rate were you lengthening?
- How many times and for how long were you doing physiotherapy/stretching per day?
- Weren't you afraid that your athletic ability would deteriorate if you lengthen too much?

- How are your proportions looking now? Especially when you sit on a chair, does the femur comes out too far?

Any tips for me, I am currently too in the lengthening phase.

First of all, thank you very much my friend. Indeed it did require a load of patience, dedication and pain tolerance, def. the hardest time of my life and even though I know what pain and dedication feels like from bodybuilding for so long, i still haven´t experienced anything like that yet. God knows I cried like a bitch a few times and my Girl had to lift me up. completely honest here.

To answer your questions:

1. My femurs were very short compared to my tibias. According to betz it was close to 90% ratio which is pretty uncommon and made me more confident in being able to lengthen 10cm without it really looking stupid (of course it does now look a little bit funky because the muscle isn´t back yet but that will subside once i´m able to put the muscle back on)

2. I lengthened at a rate of 1mm per day, normally betz patients from that point on scale back to 0,75mm per day but I stayed at 1mm until like 6cm, at that point to be completely honest I could not take the pain and discomfort anymore and also scaled back to 0,75mm per day. Looking back I don´t recommend doing it my way and going a little slower from 3cm on but in the end its also a decision by feel, my body told me to keep going until it told me to fk off and then I listened and scaled back.

3. I did a lot fo stretching from the beginning, 3-4 times a day mainly adductors, quads and hams, when I was released from the hospital I had one more week off and then immediately started working 9 hours again 5 days a week, which surely isn´t optimal. This also made it difficult to do enough PT, which I kinda slacked on for the most part of lengthening, but to be honest during lengthning days itself were so hard that I would not have been able to do 1-2 hours a day of PT anyway, the tension and discomfort for me personally was just to much. I also got covid in may which did not help my situation either.

4. Honestly I didn´t think much about that. For me it was mainly about gaining a lot of height, I know that every person on here has a different opinion regarding athletic ability and how much of it you can gain back, for me personally I´m confident that with training and time I can get back to a point where I am still pretty athletic despite the amount I lengthened. of course soft tissue is weak now and will be for quite some time but I don´t know why people think it can NEVER get back to normal or even better. pretty much everything in our body can adapt over time depending on your training and the work you put in. Thats my take on it. I´m not expert but when it comes to training, I know a thing or two. After all you are stretching the soft tissue but you (if everything goes right) are not DAMAGING it, which is a big difference.

5. I think my proportions still are very good. Now bare in mind, I lost a lot of muscle up top, I completely lost my ass and my Quad muscle, its natural that RIGHT NOW I look kinda funny. Skinny with really long quads and no muscle. But you have to keep in mind the bigger picture here. For me its all about what I will look like once the muscle is back which has a lot to do with "looking right" and proportions.
Of course my femur looks pretty long right now when sitting down but it also does that in people with naturally long femurs so Im completely okay with that.

Hope that helped a little bit. What doctor did you do the surgery with and what method? How much have you lengthened yet?
My best advice would be to be prepared for everything, you will have days that are fine and other days you´ll regret everything. Just keep in mind why you want to be taller. This is kind of a rollercoaster ride so just stay on top of stretching and PT and take it day by day.

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S

SirStretchAlot

Member

Posts: 161

Joined: May 2021

Posted on Jul 9, 2021, 11:22 pm

#4

Quote from: LegendKiller on July 09, 2021, 03:01:47 PM
First of all, thank you very much my friend. Indeed it did require a load of patience, dedication and pain tolerance, def. the hardest time of my life and even though I know what pain and dedication feels like from bodybuilding for so long, i still haven´t experienced anything like that yet. God knows I cried like a bitch a few times and my Girl had to lift me up. completely honest here.

To answer your questions:

1. My femurs were very short compared to my tibias. According to betz it was close to 90% ratio which is pretty uncommon and made me more confident in being able to lengthen 10cm without it really looking stupid (of course it does now look a little bit funky because the muscle isn´t back yet but that will subside once i´m able to put the muscle back on)

2. I lengthened at a rate of 1mm per day, normally betz patients from that point on scale back to 0,75mm per day but I stayed at 1mm until like 6cm, at that point to be completely honest I could not take the pain and discomfort anymore and also scaled back to 0,75mm per day. Looking back I don´t recommend doing it my way and going a little slower from 3cm on but in the end its also a decision by feel, my body told me to keep going until it told me to fk off and then I listened and scaled back.

3. I did a lot fo stretching from the beginning, 3-4 times a day mainly adductors, quads and hams, when I was released from the hospital I had one more week off and then immediately started working 9 hours again 5 days a week, which surely isn´t optimal. This also made it difficult to do enough PT, which I kinda slacked on for the most part of lengthening, but to be honest during lengthning days itself were so hard that I would not have been able to do 1-2 hours a day of PT anyway, the tension and discomfort for me personally was just to much. I also got covid in may which did not help my situation either.

4. Honestly I didn´t think much about that. For me it was mainly about gaining a lot of height, I know that every person on here has a different opinion regarding athletic ability and how much of it you can gain back, for me personally I´m confident that with training and time I can get back to a point where I am still pretty athletic despite the amount I lengthened. of course soft tissue is weak now and will be for quite some time but I don´t know why people think it can NEVER get back to normal or even better. pretty much everything in our body can adapt over time depending on your training and the work you put in. Thats my take on it. I´m not expert but when it comes to training, I know a thing or two. After all you are stretching the soft tissue but you (if everything goes right) are not DAMAGING it, which is a big difference.

5. I think my proportions still are very good. Now bare in mind, I lost a lot of muscle up top, I completely lost my ass and my Quad muscle, its natural that RIGHT NOW I look kinda funny. Skinny with really long quads and no muscle. But you have to keep in mind the bigger picture here. For me its all about what I will look like once the muscle is back which has a lot to do with "looking right" and proportions.
Of course my femur looks pretty long right now when sitting down but it also does that in people with naturally long femurs so Im completely okay with that.

Hope that helped a little bit. What doctor did you do the surgery with and what method? How much have you lengthened yet?
My best advice would be to be prepared for everything, you will have days that are fine and other days you´ll regret everything. Just keep in mind why you want to be taller. This is kind of a rollercoaster ride so just stay on top of stretching and PT and take it day by day.

Damn. With 10.5cm of lengthing, did you have any problems wide legs? Did you PT your way through without release?

Congrats on such an achievement!

Edit Post

Quote from: LegendKiller on July 09, 2021, 03:01:47 PM
First of all, thank you very much my friend. Indeed it did require a load of patience, dedication and pain tolerance, def. the hardest time of my life and even though I know what pain and dedication feels like from bodybuilding for so long, i still haven´t experienced anything like that yet. God knows I cried like a bitch a few times and my Girl had to lift me up. completely honest here.

To answer your questions:

1. My femurs were very short compared to my tibias. According to betz it was close to 90% ratio which is pretty uncommon and made me more confident in being able to lengthen 10cm without it really looking stupid (of course it does now look a little bit funky because the muscle isn´t back yet but that will subside once i´m able to put the muscle back on)

2. I lengthened at a rate of 1mm per day, normally betz patients from that point on scale back to 0,75mm per day but I stayed at 1mm until like 6cm, at that point to be completely honest I could not take the pain and discomfort anymore and also scaled back to 0,75mm per day. Looking back I don´t recommend doing it my way and going a little slower from 3cm on but in the end its also a decision by feel, my body told me to keep going until it told me to fk off and then I listened and scaled back.

3. I did a lot fo stretching from the beginning, 3-4 times a day mainly adductors, quads and hams, when I was released from the hospital I had one more week off and then immediately started working 9 hours again 5 days a week, which surely isn´t optimal. This also made it difficult to do enough PT, which I kinda slacked on for the most part of lengthening, but to be honest during lengthning days itself were so hard that I would not have been able to do 1-2 hours a day of PT anyway, the tension and discomfort for me personally was just to much. I also got covid in may which did not help my situation either.

4. Honestly I didn´t think much about that. For me it was mainly about gaining a lot of height, I know that every person on here has a different opinion regarding athletic ability and how much of it you can gain back, for me personally I´m confident that with training and time I can get back to a point where I am still pretty athletic despite the amount I lengthened. of course soft tissue is weak now and will be for quite some time but I don´t know why people think it can NEVER get back to normal or even better. pretty much everything in our body can adapt over time depending on your training and the work you put in. Thats my take on it. I´m not expert but when it comes to training, I know a thing or two. After all you are stretching the soft tissue but you (if everything goes right) are not DAMAGING it, which is a big difference.

5. I think my proportions still are very good. Now bare in mind, I lost a lot of muscle up top, I completely lost my ass and my Quad muscle, its natural that RIGHT NOW I look kinda funny. Skinny with really long quads and no muscle. But you have to keep in mind the bigger picture here. For me its all about what I will look like once the muscle is back which has a lot to do with "looking right" and proportions.
Of course my femur looks pretty long right now when sitting down but it also does that in people with naturally long femurs so Im completely okay with that.

Hope that helped a little bit. What doctor did you do the surgery with and what method? How much have you lengthened yet?
My best advice would be to be prepared for everything, you will have days that are fine and other days you´ll regret everything. Just keep in mind why you want to be taller. This is kind of a rollercoaster ride so just stay on top of stretching and PT and take it day by day.

Damn. With 10.5cm of lengthing, did you have any problems wide legs? Did you PT your way through without release?

Congrats on such an achievement!

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L

LegendKiller

Member

Posts: 216

Joined: Jul 2021

Posted on Jul 10, 2021, 8:18 am

#5

Quote from: SirStretchAlot on July 09, 2021, 11:22:25 PMDamn. With 10.5cm of lengthing, did you have any problems wide legs? Did you PT your way through without release?

Congrats on such an achievement!

Yes I Do. Wide legs is the only problem that's really bothering me right now so I might get an ITB-release soon. I wish betz would have done that in the original surgery but he seems to be stuck in his ways and insists that with enough PT they will close in someday, might be true but I don't want to wait 6+more months for that to happen, walking around with wide legs can't be good for your mechanics either. Stretching the IT-Band is kinda pointless since it's soft tissue but hey I'm going to try it betz's way now for at least 4 weeks and if I don't see significant improvements I'm going for an ITB-release.

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chasing_higher_dream

Member

Posts: 131

Joined: Feb 2021

Posted on Jul 10, 2021, 6:06 pm

#6

Thanks for the detailed info. Appreciate it.

I did the surgery with Dr. Betz using Betzbone on femurs. You can find my diary here: http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=66215.0

Thanks for the advice and all the best on your recovery.

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S

sixfootandhalf

Member

Posts: 66

Joined: Aug 2022

Posted on Jun 24, 2023, 5:54 pm

#7

Did you get an itb release in the end ?

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S

Stubborn Knucklehead

Member

Posts: 415

Joined: Jun 2023

Posted on Jul 3, 2023, 10:38 am

#8

What do you mean afternoon height with glucosamine? Does that supplement help prevent spinal compression during the day?

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