G-Nail on femurs in Greece on Aug24th. Let's do this!!!

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Stay strong brother!!!

At which length have you noticed an exponentially increase in pain/complications?

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Thanks. I will for sure.

At 3cm started nerve pain that lasted until about 7cm
At 6cm I noticed that I started to be really tight and if I forget to stretch one day I get very very stiff.

After 7cm I had a combination of stiffness, restlessness, pains of various type which made me want to stop every 2 or 3 days.

So I’d say the journey from 6 to 8 was the most problematic

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I can understand your frustration, mate. At the tail end of such a demanding procedure you must really long for some relief at this point.

Remember it will always get better with time, there is no exception. So just keep your head up. Your past and future self is proud of you right now. You're doing great.

How is the comradery with the other patients at Athens BJR? And how would you rate the nurses and stretching practitioners?

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Thanks Will. Appreciated. Your words and the words of many other members here have been of great help throughout the journey.

Moment s gone now. Back on track. We re still in the fourth innings and the game isn’t finished yet.
Let’s push through to the end.

Btw, my final X-rays here https://imgur.com/a/0jCnXoo
0.5mm discrepancy. I guess my lengthening isn’t quite over yet.

About eh comradely. It was good. In some way it was great but it really depends who you find there. I was lucky to find my group of 2-3 people that I bonded with and hung out with. I know now the guys over there have bonded even further and started organising lots of activities so yeah, I think that’s great.

Nurses and physio there too I found them to be competent and caring. Never have I felt unsupported or not taken care of. I guess my only argument would be about the focus of the physio sessions. All stretching and no strengthening. I would have liked a mix of the two.

But overall I think is a great team of people they’ve got going on there.

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Hi Ozboy,

What was the process like contacting Dr. Giotikas for you? Do you have to go for an in-person consultation before the surgery? And how long did it take from time of consultation to surgery date?

Thank you

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The process is straight forward. If you go to their website you can either book a free 15 mins consultation or a 45 mins or 1 hour paid one.

I did the free one first… and then the paid one next. He explained the ins and outs and I have asked all the relevant questions. Given my background of no health problems and relatively healthy living, the Dr did not require me to do an in person consultation.

Nor did I do any X-ray prior to going to Greece.

I had initially booked the surgery for November 2022 with 6 months in advance.
Then circumstances changed and I had the opportunity to anticipate as much as possible, so I reached out to them again and asked when was the soonest I could do the surgery. At the time this was like 5 weeks away.

Waiting time I believe is highly dependent on their workload so it may vary.

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Hello, how are you doing? Are u happy with the result?

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Congrats on finishing OZboy!

We finished at same length - 8.2cm. But I finished in NYE so very fresh.

I’m sure now you are consolidating you will get better exponentially so good luck for rest and enjoy the fruition.

Sorry your wife told your friends. Personally I would die of embarrassment I haven’t told a single person.

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Hi Growth Journey,
Yes man, congratulations to you too. We made it. I feel great about the new height (although I’m still technically below average). How about you?

I’m at the beginning of Consolidation week 4. 132 days post op.

I wouldn’t say I’m getting exponentially better overall. In some areas I do, in some others I’m improving slowly (frustrating).

Specifically, I feel that the tightness and the flexibility of my legs have improved greatly. I can touch my legs and feel that all the major muscle groups are starting to feel softer. This is also confirmed by the fact that it’s easier to seat in a chair that presses against your hammies like sitting in the car.

I can now lay completely flat with both my legs extended and touching each other and that feels comfortable too. I can actually cross them over and that feels good.

I’m also regaining, albeit slowly, flexibility on my quads. My goal there is to be able to sit on my heels (mind you I was able to do a hero pose before surgery… so sitting on my heels is still so way off pre surgery levels).

What is instead going very slow (although the doctor told me that probably my expectations are off) is the walking (unaided) and strength regain. My glutee and hips are very weak and I see very little improvements day by day.

My quads hurt at each step I take unaided. When I go to PT , they work me out hard and the soreness from it stays for about 4 days. Now that I had a break from it during new year’s eve, today (5th day after last session) I walked unaided the entire morning even though it hurt me a lot and im afraid tomorrow I’ll be sore again.

But anyway, today I managed to walk unaided In the house to make breakfast and do some work things, then I went  outside to grab a coffee where I probably did about 100 mt unaided and last I spent the rest of the morning chasing after the little one. Then I took a nap and when I woke up I was really sore(still am now).

I believe it is improving week by week but I’m finding it really hard to gauge whether I should push harder or back off and let the muscles rest.

Doctor is telling me to take it easy and mostly use crutches still.
PT is asking me to push harder and try to walk without crutches as much as possible.

I just don’t understand if this sharp pain I feel on my quads and adductor is normal or not.
My walking gait unaided is absolutely terrible, but if I concentrate and in my head decide to bear the pain I can improve it for a few steps.

I will push harder in the next few weeks and see what that does.

Last on the negative is that I can still feel that my bone is far from consolidating. How? Well I still need to be careful when I do rotating motions as I can feel my leg twisting still. I haven’t had any more accidental clicks yet (I’m not even trying to ) but I believe if I wanted to click it’d still be easy.
That adds  a bit of a mental barrier when doing movements in bed , or getting in and out of a car.

Back on some positives
My walking with crutches is really good and it gets better every week. But also the crutches are getting more and more frustrating to use as time goes by and I resume my usual life activities.

I also noticed that when I do the treadmill at the gym (using my hands to support part of my wait (I’m recreating the Alter-G system manually lol) I can walk very very well). So hopefully this is too just a matter of time and excercise.

Another part which has been very positive is that I’ve gone off tramadol completely and I’m past the withdrawal period which was quite horrible to be honest.

I’m still taking lyrica regularly because one of the consequences of trying to walk unaided and putting weight on my leg (in this case my right leg) is that it inflames it to the point that I get a mild nerve pain after.

My last point is a reflection of one subtle but important realisation and mental change that this whole process has generated. The appreciation of health. “Mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). This surgery is kind of humbling in some sense, it teaches us the value of discipline, time, patience, health. A healthy body wants to do 100 things. A sick one wants but one (this too a citation from one philosopher… can’t remember who).

 (In some way, I feel like I am and I will be a better person getting out of this and not only because of the increased height, but also and especially because of what this process (the struggles) has taught me)

And to quote a friend who’s not on this forum but that did Gnail in Greece at my same time and recovered much faster and better than myself….”I finally feel I’m an adult among people”

I second that feeling 100%

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Do you think your slow recovery with walking is consistent among other patients. Generally, do you feel as if Dr. G is a good doctor given he's on e of the few ones that actually offer a weight bearing nail? Also, is there no way to lock the clicking mechanism after your desired lengthening?