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

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Quote from: OzBoy39 on September 13, 2022, 05:36:46 AMUpdate at 20 days post-op (23mm distraction)

Yesterday I had my first x-ray and follow-up visit with Dr Giotikas

I can't yet upload the x-rays as they ve given those to me on a CD and ... Who has a cd player in his laptop these days? EU privacy laws are a bit outdated.

Anyway, the x-ray didn't show any particular problem. Nail is straight. Bone is starting to grow and the gap as of yesterday was at approximately 23mm.

We decided to lower the click rate from 15 to 12 clicks a day (0.8mm).
This is to reduce the stress on my legs and also reduce the duckass effect which i can already notice.

 I'm upping my stretching routine and incorporating more complex movements now that my legs allow me to do them.

Specifically I'll be adding:
- Hip flexor stretches on the edge of the bed (really useful and ... Painful at the same time).
- Abductor stretching in the form of butterfly pose and also laying lateral extensions using the strap provided by PT.
- Hamstring stretch both standing and laying on the bed with the strap.

I feel this is gonna be the real battle in the months ahead.  As the PT guy said, the secret to success is to always try to be a little ahead with stretching than your soft tissue requires.

And btw, at 23mm only, I already noticed the difference in height. Not much, but enough to give a boost of motivation. I can only imagine what it'd feel when I reach around 5cm and more.

Finger crossed as always and keep on strerching

I'm proud of you, brother!

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hi, does giotikas allow going back to home country during lengthneing?

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He does, but only after 6 weeks post surgery

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Quote from: OzBoy39 on September 14, 2022, 03:13:47 AMHe does, but only after 6 weeks post surgery

Why that period? to prevent clotting?

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Hey OzBoy39,

which drugs do you take for anticoagulant prophylaxis? What's the treatment regimen?

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Not only clotting but in general I believe he wants you to stay here for the period necessary  to reduce risks of complications like yeah clotting, clicking, muscle contractures, bone healing... and also to allow you to make enough PT sessions to mitigate all the conditions that arise with the lengthening (duck ass, stiffness , contractures).

Before the surgery I was also asking and trying to understand if I could come home after just 2 or 3 weeks. Now that I'm into it fully, I wouldn't do it at all.

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Quote from: Limbfan2020 on September 14, 2022, 10:10:13 AMHey OzBoy39,

which drugs do you take for anticoagulant prophylaxis? What's the treatment regimen?

Xeralto pill once a day and I've been 3 weeks with the compression socks. I believe I'll be taking xeralto for the 1st month postop and then stop.

I've already taken the compression socks off.

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Thanks for the videos OzBoy39! Good to see your progress and that you're able to do the clicking completely independently with minimal pain. I'm sure these videos will be helpful for plenty of others using g-nail (or even Betz nail).

This is random but how many compression socks do they give you to wear? I imagine having only one pair would get rather smelly Also, do you have the option of asking Dr G to take xeralto for longer than one month (e.g. potentially for the whole lengthening period)?

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Hi Thankscience,
Hopefully they'll help someone. But for anybody who's doing this, please try to find what works best for you. Sometime it's just about slightly changing the angle of your quad or lower legs to make the clicking easy. Try, to not get discouraged if it doesn't work at first. But try and be concious of your body response and feeling. Adjust a little and try again, slowly. Don't push to the point of extreme pain. If you twisted 45 degrees and it didn't click yet... you're doing it wrong. You don't have to push harder. You gotta change the way you're doing it.

For the compression socks, I use to wash them every 2or 3 days. So one pair was ok. I'm sure if I had asked more they would give me right away.

Xeralto, I do t really wanna take it for longer than a month. Talking to the Doc he says that at that point, the risk of blood clotting (for G-Nail or other weight bearing patients) is extremely low, so there's no point in maintaining the same regime (and by doing so further damaging the liver).

It is a different thing for precice patients who cannot really move much other than the wheelchair. They will use xeralto throughout the lengthening if I understood correctly.

I'm already pretty mobile and active throughout the day, and I hope it'll only go up from here in terms of mobility.

He'll then give me xeralto again a few days prior and after my flight home together with the compression socks to wear during the flight.

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Any LL veterans wanna help me theory craft good technique for transfers?

Scooching forward in bed seems alot more difficult for me than scooching back.

To scooch back in bed, I can push with my triceps and lats

To scooch forward in bed, I sort of grip the bed and try to pull my way forward, sometimes resulting in the legs bumping into some misc blanket/pillow stuff which is a bit uncomfortable

The grabber has been a godsend

I'm gonna venture to the toilet some time this weekend by myself without the nurses and the biggest challenges seem to be transferring off of the bed and also transferring off of the toilet

The issue is that although I can use more upper body to help (muscles associated with using a dip), I sort of need to find the right amount of legs/quads to use because a dip using upper body strength alone really cannot fully lift the body for me

And there is a bit of this uncertainty when pushing with quads ("Am I pushing too hard? Am I hurting my legs? But I need some of my quads to lift myself off of bed onto the walker) and I am sort of in the midst of working this out