Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on January 09, 2021, 10:53:21 PMHi Longer,
I checked seconds 40 and later after seeing your post. You are certainly correct that my femurs look abnormally long in that video. As you noted, it's partly because the femurs are 8cm longer. However it could partly be specific to that video itself (e.g., the way I dressed especially my pants which look white on femurs down to below knees, also walking on the lawn that kinda hides my shoes, etc.). As an example in the other video I had posted, femurs may not look abnormally tall:
In any case I totally agree with you that my femurs look abnormally tall in the jogging video. I try to post more video with pants that have the same color from top to bottom to get a better perspective of the femur to tibia proportion.
I guess we wait to find out about others here, but about others who see me in real: No one around me has yet suspected or at least hinted me on abnormally long femurs. This includes friends, colleagues, and relatives who do or do not know about my surgery. It could be that they don't care to carefully analyze me; or that the way I dressed did not reveal it like in that video.
Those who commented, say that I look taller and my answer has been that it's probably my shoes. Also some said I look thinner, which I know is not true, cause I am definitely heavier. [By the way I need to mention that my weight in the last few weeks has ranged between 144 and 148 pounds; which is higher than my pre-surgery weight; and given my fat has not increased at all, the extra weight must be due to additional muscle and callus compared to pre-surgery].
This is what I should add: If my tibias were longer to have perfect proportion, of course that could look best; better than my current now. However comparing my current and before the surgery, I am pretty sure my legs look a lot better. I think the reason is that height is so important to eyes (at least my own eyes) that you would enjoy looking at taller legs, even if the proportion is not perfect and eyes tend to not identify a disproportion of 8cm for most of the part.
Hey SNC Did you have that much flexibility before undergoing surgery? Or have you been gaining it through post-surgery rehabilitation? What surprises me the most is having a lot of flexibility in that video after the operation and lengthening 8 cm hahahaha
Femurs with Dr. Shahab Mahboubian - July 2020
Nice recovery SNC! Glad to see you're basically back to normal. At the end of your distraction phase, around 70-80mm, how was your range of motion on bending your knee, and how is it now? Would be great to see a vid if you can make it in your next one. I'm currently stuck at maybe 90 degrees at best.
Quote from: sakmadik on January 10, 2021, 01:19:34 AMHey SNC Did you have that much flexibility before undergoing surgery? Or have you been gaining it through post-surgery rehabilitation? What surprises me the most is having a lot of flexibility in that video after the operation and lengthening 8 cm hahahaha
Thanks sakmadik for the kind words.
I had it before the surgery. In teen years I went to gymnastics and then taekwondo. However for two reasons I stopped both: First that I found out I was not exceptionally great in gymnastics or taekwondo. I could probably win a medal in my city or state, but nationally no chance. Also some of my friends got injured and that scared me. After quitting both, I still continued to do stretching to maintain my flexibility.
I lost my flexibility during distraction. I got it back again gradually starting week two into the consolidation phase. I am planning to continue my stretching routine and see if I can get better than my pre-surgery, but so far, I would say I am at the pre-surgery levels.
Quote from: brokeboy on January 10, 2021, 01:45:12 AMNice recovery SNC! Glad to see you're basically back to normal. At the end of your distraction phase, around 70-80mm, how was your range of motion on bending your knee, and how is it now? Would be great to see a vid if you can make it in your next one. I'm currently stuck at maybe 90 degrees at best.
Hi brokeboy,
I had a painful distraction phase. Especially due to extreme growth, Dr. M. put me on a two week fast distraction of 1.33 mm per day. That made the process even more painful and degraded my flexibility significantly. If I remember correctly during the fast distraction I could not touch my toes in the forward folding pose. However a couple weeks after the last day of distraction things started to exponentially get better. The major breakthrough happened around month 4.5 post-op that I realized I have a good shot at getting back to normal in a couple months from then. I have been spending hours per day stretching, walking and jogging. Specifically on stretching, I pushed it almost every time. I highly recommend that, of course if your doctor approves it. It would help a lot with recovery.
Quote from: Tartar on January 09, 2021, 10:22:53 PM....I think that for hard runs and contact sports at a good level nails have to be removed.
Hi Tartar,
I would like to add some notes on the following two items related to nails:
1) Is it possible to feel normal while on nails? or is it that no matter how strong and fast your recovery has been, you would not feel a 100% normal until you have removed the nails.
You know I had a painful distraction phase, therefore this journey was certainly not easy for me. I cannot imagine how I would survive the first few weeks post-op and also the whole distraction phase, without painkillers and the rest of the pain management I did.
With that level of pain, and given that everyone, including Dr. M. told me that life cannot be a perfect normal with the nails, I had prepared for a full recovery in about 1.5 years when I'd remove the nails. However during the consolidation phase I realized I might have a chance on a much faster recovery.
I have no medical background, but I used my finance and engineering knowledge to look at the process of recovery as an optimization problem. My goal was to minimize the recovery time to "normal" (with a definition of "normal" that I have posted on this page and before).
There are several hard constraints, e.g., nails should not get bent, and callus should not get fractured. There are some soft constraints, e.g., LDL cholesterol should not rise too high as a result of including a lot of meat in my daily diet; but I am willing to let it rise for a while so I can gain strong muscles and callus.
To not violate the hard constraints, I lowered the intensity of some of the moves such as running, but added to the duration of exercises and kept adding to the duration almost on a daily basis. This was mainly to avoid pushing the nails into bending or callus into fractures. E.g., instead of running very fast, I have done jogging at 30% of max speed I can handle, but I do for long distances and that for today was running for 3.8 miles nonstop but with a low pace, while yesterday at 3.3 miles.
My theory was to make muscles so strong to overpower the nails, to a level my body would not be able to feel the nails at all. Since I experienced extreme callus growth during distraction, I figured I could continue the same diet to hopefully get extreme callus growth during consolidation. Around month 5, I finally started to feel that my legs are strong enough to overpower the nails. No matter what I do (jogging, walking, swimming, sleeping, driving, etc.) my legs feel so strong, as if I just had a one hour swim, and that helps me have no feeling of nails.
I have therefore proven to myself that it is quite possible to get back to a 100% normal before removing the nails and that happened staring Day 150+ post-op.
2) Is it possible to compete while on nails?
Unfortunately I am not a pro athlete who has competed and won medals. But it would be great to see a pro doing something like I did and experience a fast recovery and then see if he or she can compete say by month 6 or so. I understand it seems impossible, because people talk about consolidation and hardening taking months, blah blah, but after seeing item (1) above and proving to myself that things can get back to normal by month 5, I would not be surprised if someone in the future proves that even item (2) is possible.
Finally I would like to remind us all the CLL recovery is not a racing competition. We don't wanna push our bodies to a level that we would create complications and never recover from them. Recovering in 1.5 years is still better than having to deal with complications for the rest of our post CLL life. We therefore better listen to our bodies and adjust the level of intensity and duration of our exercises and also plan for our diet.
It's like a tradeoff. The more we push our bodies, the higher the chances are that we violate the soft and hard constraints, mentioned above. Obviously we should not violate the hard constraints. We should also consider a high cost for violating the soft constraints.
I hope this helps.
SNC is slowly taking the place of movie as fastest recovery and showin' off.
I LOVE this diary. and the idea of this as a "challenge" to positively take on.
Quote from: las vegas baby on January 12, 2021, 05:08:43 PMSNC is slowly taking the place of movie as fastest recovery and showin' off.
I LOVE this diary. and the idea of this as a "challenge" to positively take on.
Thanks las vegas baby 
Happy New Year!
Update:
I just visited Dr. M.'s office for my appointment. All is perfect. I am beyond happy!
The x-rays look perfect. Dr. M. said 100% bone consolidation and hardening already happened and I can do whatever I want 
I am thinking of robbing a bank 
I had hoped for extreme growth like what I had during distraction and I am so happy that continued for me to full consolidation and hardening around month 5 post-op! I asked Dr. M. if he sees any issues such as bone fracture or nail bending and he said no, all looks perfect.
Dr. M. had seen some of my videos, so he already knew what I am capable of. He checked my walk and asked me to do a complete squat down to my feet and back up with no use of hands. I showed off a very strong and quick one and he said it just could not get better
He also said I am ready for nail removal in 3 months which means I can have my nails removed 8 months post-op. However, I think I would like to do this something after May 2021 mainly due to my job. Also the fact that I don't feel the nails and they don't bother me at all, motivates me to wait and do that at a perfect time; when my job would not be affected at all.
He also asked me to continue whatever I am doing in terms of exercise and diet until sometime after nail removal (I think he said until 3 months after nail removal, but I am not sure. Will check with him later).
While talking about the videos, I told him that I had also posted them here on this forum. He then asked what my username is and I said StrydeNailChallenge, SNC. He then said I should change my username to StrydeNailIronManChallenge 
Many of you helped me through this journey. I had some painful times during the distraction phase and your advice and notes here worked for me. Thanks very much for all the help and motivation. I hope my diary would be looked at as a way of returning the favor.
StrydeNailIronManChallenge [Crowned by Dr. M. himself]
wow, just wow! I'm sure this will be considered the gold standard of LL recovery on this forum, 8cm femur Stryde with max recovery in 5 months post op! I will definitely be referring extensively to this forum when I myself undergo Stryde femurs LL later this year!
Key takeaways I got so far:
- Consistent pain management during distraction
- Consistent stretching AND walking AND jogging during distraction/ consolidation FOR HOURS everyday without fail(the difference between you and Movie I believe as Movie never placed as much emphasis on stretching as he did walking/ jogging according to his diary.
- Consistent high protein diet throughout, even at the risk of high cholesterol, for the sake of recovery and bone consolidation
- consistency in all these factors daily, without fail! Consistency is key!
Quote from: Tokito_Ohma on January 13, 2021, 04:27:18 AMwow, just wow! I'm sure this will be considered the gold standard of LL recovery on this forum, 8cm femur Stryde with max recovery in 5 months post op! I will definitely be referring extensively to this forum when I myself undergo Stryde femurs LL later this year!
Key takeaways I got so far:
- Consistent pain management during distraction
- Consistent stretching AND walking AND jogging during distraction/ consolidation FOR HOURS everyday without fail(the difference between you and Movie I believe as Movie never placed as much emphasis on stretching as he did walking/ jogging according to his diary.
- Consistent high protein diet throughout, even at the risk of high cholesterol, for the sake of recovery and bone consolidation
- consistency in all these factors daily, without fail! Consistency is key!
Hi Tokito_Ohma,
I agree with you that consistency on the whole process, including never missing on the daily hours of exercise (stretching, walking, etc.) is key. Also I somehow had extremely fast callus growth. It is most likely the result of the good diet I have had. I think without the extremely fast growth recovery to "normal" would go beyond a year.
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