Getting surgery soon

I am in the final stages of deciding which surgeon I will have the femur lengthening procedure with.

I'm 5 feet tall and I have a congenital back problem that made me so short. It's called Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia tarda. It never stopped me from practically anything, I was always very active and sportsy, but unfortunately very short. Im 39 yo and not concerned with the loss of athletic ability tbh...

My biggest concern is with complications in lengthening the femur (thigh bone), which apparently is more complicated than lengthening the tibia. As the femur is a somewhat curved and arched bone - unlike the tibia - there can be an unwanted change in axis between hip and knee.

Another additional complication is about body proportion. Due to the disease, my trunk is already much smaller than my legs, so in fact I would stretch the femur - 6 cm at most.

Im gonna try to insert a image /sketch of a preview I made but not sure how yet

You research is wrong lengthening tibia in generel has a much higher complication rate than femur. Some of the reasons is that you have to cut and grow back longer 2 bones (tibia+fibular bone) vs femur where it's only one bone. Most doctors recommend to just go for the Femurs and lengthen 6-8 cm, because it is the safest, quickest and easiest. With tibia surgery malalignment is also much more common than with femur. Go watch Cyborg4lifes video on whether you should choose tibia or femur, and this will be confirmed

Tibias is much less painful than femurs.

Thanks, had no idea femur was safer. Guess im calmer now.

Still cant upload any pictures - message error from forum: The upload folder is full. Please try a smaller file and/or contact an administrator

Uploaded it (my body proportions) to a third party site: https://postimg.cc/Mf0t0NYp

When doing such a surgery pain is inevitble. It's something you shouldn't really care about since it's only a one time thing...

I think your proportions looks totally fine. Especially with femur lengthening it's very easy to hide, if you care about hiding your surgery from other people. I personally think most people should stop caring about what other people think, since it limits or can destroy your life... But that might only be my thinking...

Been reading a lot since I first posted here and some doubts arose.

Should I start exercising more and doing a lot of stretching in my legs to prepare for surgery?

Another question: my doctor said he would use the monolateral fixator technique for the femur. Does this technique leave a perpetual intramedullary nail in your leg?

1. Yes before surgery if you have a proper doctor, they should give you some instructions for streching exercises.

2. Not sure about your question but only internal lengthening methods for femurs is safe. In generel LON is much more unsafe and almost all western surgeons don't recommend it for a reason...

In the Limb Lengthening Methods page here on the forum the LON method is explained as:

"Lengthening Over Nails combines a ring fixator for lengthening and a regular intramedullary nail... Once the bones are fully consolidated, another operation is needed to remove the nails along with a week’s bed rest for the bones to heal from nail removal."

So there's definitely a nail, dont know if it is pulled or if it remains. It depends on the doctor?

Im gonna talk to my doctor again, but from what we talked im getting this one: https://www.limblength.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Art_Tx-ExFix-Monolateral-Fixator-Before-Femur-Lengthening.jpg.webp

I guess there's no intramedullary nail, but im kinda confused! Thanks !

Quote from: goingtall on March 20, 2023, 05:24:00 PMIn the Limb Lengthening Methods page here on the forum the LON method is explained as:

"Lengthening Over Nails combines a ring fixator for lengthening and a regular intramedullary nail... Once the bones are fully consolidated, another operation is needed to remove the nails along with a week’s bed rest for the bones to heal from nail removal."

So there's definitely a nail, dont know if it is pulled or if it remains. It depends on the doctor?

Im gonna talk to my doctor again, but from what we talked im getting this one: https://www.limblength.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Art_Tx-ExFix-Monolateral-Fixator-Before-Femur-Lengthening.jpg.webp

I guess there's no intramedullary nail, but im kinda confused! Thanks !

I would recommend you do Precise 2.2 or a weight bearing nail.  LON patients have worse outcomes on all fronts.  This method is really out the door for reputable surgeons these days and is considered old tech.