Day 14 (Wednesday, August 5) - 6.98 Taller
The most inconvenient part of this for me is the night time sleep. I wake up every 30 to 90 minutes and overall I sleep for 3 hours or so. I know from IFS that Tylenol + Tramadol worked as a good alternative (to Norco). I have emailed Dr. M. to double check.
I did not walk or stretch as much as yesterday or the day before, because of the pain I have in my left leg. I am not sure if the pain is like the old one from the surgery or the pain caused by soreness and tightness due to lengthening, or both.
Today was the 5th (and last) day of lengthening by 1.33mm. Starting tomorrow only 3 lengthening sessions totaling 1mm.
Something I would like to remind all is the importance of the walker height. I think depending on the upper body strength, wingspan, etc. there would be a height range that works well for you. However you would wanna adjust it to be mostly on the shorter that the taller options. The shorter, the easier to stand up from a sitting position using your arms, especially if your feet cannot bear your weight post-surgery.
Also a reminder to those ladies and gents who'd want to do LL in the future; make sure you strengthen your upper body to make post-surgery a lot easier to manage. To evaluate whether your upper body is set, you may do the following: Find two parallel flat surfaces, bars, etc. that are almost as tall as your hip level and distanced as wide as your shoulder. E.g., a table and a chair may work. Then sit in between [almost like a squat position] and see if you could lift your body completely up with no help from your feet and do this slowly enough that you have time to gradually straighten your legs and then gradually put your weight on your feet. See if you could slow it down to 30 seconds or a minute, and use the time to very slowly stand on your feet.
Femurs with Dr. Shahab Mahboubian - July 2020
Thanks for posting frequently, I'll be keeping up with your journal. Doesn't seem to be as many active journals this year.
Quote from: BelowTheMean on August 07, 2020, 12:18:27 AMThanks for posting frequently, I'll be keeping up with your journal. Doesn't seem to be as many active journals this year.
You are welcome. I hope in addition to what IFS, Movie and others posted, my posts helps at least some of the future LL'ers.
Day 15 (Thurs., Aug. 6th) - 7.97mm Taller
I did a lot of stretching before the night sleep as Dr. M. suggested. I think it helped. I also turned on the TV hoping it would help me fall asleep. I think that helped a lot. Overall I had a better night.
Today is the first of the 3 * 0.33mm session days. I did one at 6am by mistake (a better time would've been 7am, then 3pm, and then 11pm each for 0.33mm.) Note that the device is already programmed, therefore I don't need to make any calculations. All I need to do is to place the ERC device properly on my femur where the magnet is and then go step by step following a very simple procedure.
Every time I do the sessions, I can feel something on my left leg, but not much on my right. I guess in a few days we will do if I did it correctly (next Dr. M. appt. will have the x-rays and measurements to see how the sessions turned out).
I emailed Dr. M. last night and in less than two hours he responded. I had asked him about alternatives to Norco. He suggested taking melatonin or a sleeping pill. He also suggested that I do as much stretching exercises as I can before going to bed.
I am going to try the sleeping pill (Sleep^3 of Costco) tonight and will keep all updated. I will also continue to do stretching right before going to bed and also keep the TV or youtube or something on for the whole night if necessary.
Today was an easier day. The way I thought about it as far as the sessions go is that today I had 3 sessions as compared to 4 sessions in the last 5 days and also the time between the sessions increased from 6 to 8, therefore doing a simple math the difficult as far as sessions could have eased quadratically (3/4 * 6/8, i.e., (3/4)^2 ). I don't know if anyone agrees with me, but I feel that my body feels quadratic about it, meaning I feel superlinearly eased up today 
I continued my self-PT moves and walking steps. On a daily basis I create exercises for myself. I had talked to Movie about creating a set of exercises and posting them for those who plan to do self-PT; but I think we have to be extremely careful. We are not PTs, therefore technically we should not give advice to LL'ers on what exercises to do or to avoid. Also no matter what we provide, it may not work for all individuals and in fact it may be harmful. I am going to continue for a while on the self-PT and if I feel I am doing better than a PT, then I will double check with Movie, IFS and others and see whether posting our exercises with a BIG disclaimer is safe and helpful to all.
I think a PT creates a sense of structure and routine and reduces slacking and a PT can also push you harder than you physically can yourself, usually.
Regardless I have no doubt you'll be successful, since you clearly have good work ethic and self PT might be better for you
Quote from: ghkid2019 on August 07, 2020, 05:46:53 AMI think a PT creates a sense of structure and routine and reduces slacking and a PT can also push you harder than you physically can yourself, usually.
You are correct.
I did this, because I find it safer to not go out and not interact with outsiders coming to my house to lower my chances of catching covid-19.
However my plan has been to consult this with Dr. M. on my next appt. If I find out based on the x-rays that my progress has not been good, I will take the risk and get a PT.
Day 16 (Fri., Aug. 7) - 8.98 mm Taller
Hello All,
According to Dr. M.'s recommendation to give melatonin a try, I got Costco's Sleep3 (10mg Melatonin - https://www.costco.com/nature's-bounty-sleep3-10mg.-melatonin%2C-120-tablets.product.100581539.html) and took it for one night. I don't believe it had any positive impact on me. There is a chance if I continued, it might work, but I am so scared of taking medicine in general, and as soon as I find out a reason to avoid a medicine, I would like to do so, immediately. I think the reason it does not work for me is that sleep medicines such as Sleep3, resolve sleep disorders, whereas in my case, I feel sleepy all the time, but the pain and discomfort prevents me from falling asleep; I don't think this is exactly a sleep disorder that sleep medicines would resolve. I think I need a pain killer!
I will contact Dr. M., once more to find an alternative to Tylenol + Norco that I am currently taking. By default I think I will try what IFS tried, i.e., Tramadol + Tylenol.
Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary today. Just continued to create new stretching exercises for myself, including doing some face-down or on-knees exercises, in addition to some well-known exercises that I also try (such as cat/cobra: )***.
My left leg continues to be the much more painful one, but I feel like the new stretches, help me reduce the pain.
**** Disclaimer: Please do not blindly copy the exercises from me or anyone else if you are not very certain about its benefits. When it comes to exercises, it is wise to consult with your PT and/or your doctor to make sure the exercise is safe with you.
I write my notes at times when I need to distract myself from the pain! but that has increased my typo rate 
I am sorry if the typos have confused anyone, but I assume you guys would let me know if something does not make sense.
Here I wanted to clarify something I had posted for day 16:
Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on August 08, 2020, 09:03:22 PMDay 16 (Fri., Aug. 7) - 8.98 mm Taller
**** Reminder: Please do not blindly try the exercises posted by from me or anyone else if you are not certain whether they are right for you. It is wise to consult with your PT and/or your doctor to make sure the exercise is safe for you.
Day 17 (Sat., Aug. 
- 9.97 mm Taller
I graduated myself from the walker and moved to crutches today. It was a bit tougher using crutches indoors the whole time, but I hope this is one step closer to walking unassisted.
As usual, night time sleep was the toughest part. I need to find the right pain killer. I have read here that our fellow LL'ers recommended Tramadol and CBD, and I think I am going to switch one of them after discussing it with Dr. M.
@ IFS, Movie, BoneStretching and other LL'ers of Dr. M.,
I have been receiving new medical bills so far two from the hospital, even if I already paid the $45K hospital cost to them directly. One bill reads X-ray reading, $52 per femur, totaling $104. The other, is much higher: Dr. Chan's "Anesthesia Services", balance: $2185.00. Is this normal? Did you guys also end up paying some followup bills?
Thanks,
SNC
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