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

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Well, I don’t really think the doctor has much to do with my recovery to be honest.
I’ve seen and I am in contact with an number of patients who had Gnail and we are all different. Many are better than me. 

I think all has started going south for me when I strained my quad right after surgery. That has really took a hit on my PT and excercises whilst I was there.

No, there is no way to lock the nail but it isn’t a big deal. I just mentioned it as “one of the observations “

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Quote from: OzBoy39 on January 03, 2023, 04:33:04 AMWell, I don’t really think the doctor has much to do with my recovery to be honest.
I’ve seen and I am in contact with an number of patients who had Gnail and we are all different. Many are better than me. 

I think all has started going south for me when I strained my quad right after surgery. That has really took a hit on my PT and excercises whilst I was there.

No, there is no way to lock the nail but it isn’t a big deal. I just mentioned it as “one of the observations “

Hey, mate. Your recovery going any better?

The package included 4 PT sessions per week at 'Athens BJR', if not mistaken? Were you able to buy 3 additional PT sessions a week if you wanted to?(So you could have one each day)

Also, how is the new height treating you? Any interesting or funny thing you've experienced that you want to share ?

Right now it looks like I'll be able to do this in 2025. I have some saving to do first. But all is going well.

Thanks for an inspiring journal

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Hi Will,
Recovery is progressing well albeit slowly. I’m looking forward to a new round of X-rays next week to see how the consolidation of the bones is going.

I can feel something changing in the way my legs feel at every step. My head telling me that the bone is taking over in weight bearing my body. It feels a little painful each step, but a good type of pain (hard to put in words). Regaining some side strength (abduction) but still not walking much unaided.

In regards to PT in Athens, I don’t think you can purchase more sessions at the same clinic on the 3 days off. Maybe you could hire an external PT to come to your hotel but ..:I personally don’t think you need to as you can do plenty of excercises and stretches by yourself on those days… and also don’t forget that you’re gonna need at least 1 day off per week to let your legs rest.

My new height is great. I love comparing myself to my wife and joke her about how small a midget she is now in comparison to me. She hates it!!! Guess we’re not gonna have $3X anytime soon.

I definitely feel more comfortable in social situations, but let’s not forget that I’m still going out with crutches so I haven’t fully experienced the gains. Those are for the months to come.

Good on you. 2025 is still a long way away. Hopefully by then, some new weight bearing nail with better features will come out and the surgeons and PT clinics would have further refined the process.

It’s exciting to live in an age where this type of body modification is possible. We should feel lucky in a way! (Although I guess we could also feel unlucky for the short stature we were born with… ah whatever. Let’s look at the glass half full)

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"when I do rotating motions as I can feel my leg twisting still"

This is what I fear the most in my lengthening.  Im nervous it will be a long time into consolidation until this stops.  Because theres really no way to walk normally until this gets resolved.

How is your status with this today?

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That’s definitely one of the things that I feel changing as in getting less and less pronounced.
But as I had mentioned, I remember how weird it used to feel the first few weeks. After that, you sort of don’t even notice it anymore. Not sure why is that. I can just tell you that after a while I stoped thinking about it until you mentioned it a few days ago

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Quote from: OzBoy39 on January 18, 2023, 05:18:03 AMThat’s definitely one of the things that I feel changing as in getting less and less pronounced.
But as I had mentioned, I remember how weird it used to feel the first few weeks. After that, you sort of don’t even notice it anymore. Not sure why is that. I can just tell you that after a while I stoped thinking about it until you mentioned it a few days ago

Good to know it tampers down. Yeah its the pinwheel effect and also there just being some horizontal plane movement.  Like if you sway your body standing from one side to the other theres definitely a bit of play between your bones and the nail.  Even though its very little, you body needs a rock solid foundation to really be able to walk normally.

Once your consolidation nears completion I bet your gait gets a whole lot better.

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5 Months Post Op. 7 weeks into consolidation

These below are my X-rays from yesterday

https://imgur.com/a/kkpudaP

Kinda slow but it has definitely progressed from last month.
I need to eat more that's for sure.
I'll try to follow a fellow LL friend and load up on calories and proteins. See if that gives me a boost.

Now, regardless of the bone consolidation which I believe to be a factor in my recovery, below is a summary of the main traits as of today:

- walking unaided improved as in the Trendelenburg gait is improving as I do more excercises aimed at regaining muscles in the glute area. I'll try to take a video later and post it here too.

-Ive had a massive improvement in my sleep pattern being able to go almost one week with uninterrupted sleep throughout each night.

- Agility and stiffness are improving too. Slowly but steadily.

- Proximal screw irritating my hips seems to have very slightly improved. I can raise my leg at about 90 deg and it doesn't catch very often.

- Energy levels are going up as well. Not much but I'd say I feel I am at 50% my pre-op levels.

- Physio is still hard. I'm still unable to really do one pegged excercises or squatting of any sort so that limits greatly the things we can do.

A few bad points to notice:

- my consolidation is definitely slower than usual. Maybe it is the age. Maybe it is just me. But the doctor didn't seem concerned last time.around. any advise to speed it up is welcome.

- I keep overdoing and getting injured in my muscles. Sunday I've been out all day. I probably walked on and off crutches for about 2 or 3km... In the evening I got out of the car and felt an incredible 8/10 pain on my right knee and quad. I honestly thought I had broken the distal.screws.as it was so intense.
Then got the x-ray, checked in with physio and realised I "simply" both overstretched and overexcercised my right quad. Whatever... I'm getting used to it， but a very annoying thing is that this episode brought back.some nerve pain in my shin.

Overall things are improving, but way slower than I had anticipated. This is a problem in regards to work. I hate being seen always with crutches. Too many questions (and lies from my end).

Dating and S&X life... No, joking. I'm not after that but im sure I've regained your attention now.

Not much more. Focus on this 5th month post op will be on speeding up consolidation through nutrition and exercise.

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Hi OzBoy, thank you for the great level of detail you are providing. It's unbelievably helpful. Few questions that I wanted to ask at this point of your journey:

1. Would you still advise to your slightly younger self to go through with the LL? Since dating is not your priority and all, did you get enough satisfaction from other aspects of life that makes it totally worth it?

2. You might have answered it, but at what point were you able to start getting by inside your house or office at least somewhat unaided? Would it be possible to say arrive to work on crutches and then get around with occasional (<10m) walks to the restroom and such?

3. Looking back, would you advise to shorten the lengthening to avoid some of the recovery complications? I read somewhere on this forum that 6cm seems to be the optimum. I completely get the pros and cons here, give me all 15cm if possible, but it looks like the last 2cm cost dearly. What is your personal opinion on this?

Thank you for your responses!