Limb lengthening with Fitbone

I am currently doing limb lengthening in Barcelona with Fitbone.


Just around  15 years ago, before September 11, I found out about limb lengthening, and I was determined to do it. But I never had the time and money. Then I sold my company recently, looked limb lengthening up again 2 months ago and yesterday I had my surgery!
As you guys of this forum helped me, I want to give back by sharing my experience.

How I decided
In 2001 I told my family that I was going to do limb lengthening surgery, but they were totally against it and at the time I also did not have the resources.
Thus I waited.
In 2012-2014  I was living in Kiev, Ukraine, and I was seriously considering doing it there. But for several reasons I did not have a good feeling about doing it there.
Then 3 months ago I read again about limb lengthening and found that it was definitely advisable to do internal limb lengthening and it seemed there were 4 internals rods that I could trust:
Precise
Fitbone
Prof. Guichet’s Albianizza
Betzbone
Prices for all these internal methods seemed very high, Prof. Guichet and Prof. Betz quotes me over 55,000 USD.
Then I looked at the fitbone website, to see all the clinics using the fitbone device and decided to  write to several.
The response, and ensuing conversation I had with Dr. Alejandro Monegal from Barcelona lead me to trust him. Also, the prices he quoted were 36,000-38,000 euro, cheaper than what I had seen elsewhere for the internal method.
So 3 weeks ago I flew to Barcelona. I had long conversations with Dr. Alejandro Monegal as well as with several of his patients. As a result I became convinced that:
The surgical procedure is very standard and very little risk
The pain during lengthening is not so bad
Functionality will be recovered almost 100%
Thus I decided to go ahead!
I decided on the option of lengthening both legs at the same time, even though Dr. Monegal prefers to do one after the other. The reason is that if I am going through pain I want this to be intense and short, rather than getting even more pain once the first leg is done.
Doing both at the same time means that I will be bound to the wheel chair for the time of lengthening. As I want to lengthen 5,5 cm and 0,8 mm can be lengthened per day, I will spend over 2 months in the wheelchair.

Update:
I have a really nice view on the mountains from my hospital room, but I am bored, having to lie in a bed for 3 days without moving my legs! This is because my legs are under anesthesia. That of course also means I feel no pain.

Just had a visit from Dr. Monegal, who confirmed that everything is going according to plan.

After one week I will leave Clinica Diagonal and move to a residency for limb lengthening patients:
http://www.micsantjordi.org/?lang=es

I hope it will be more exciting, as there will be around 5 other limb lengthening patients from all over the world.

Thanks for your wishes!
14 months ago! Have you recovered 100% already?

update:
I had the surgery 48 hours ago.
So far not much pain.
However, it is more uncomfortable than I thought: I cannot move my legs, so I cannot go to the toillet nor have a shower. The nurses have ti take my extrements and clean my whole body.

On the positive side:
there is a good Internet connection, so I am able to get lots of work done on my laptop
the food is good
there is a constant flow of nurses coming to visit, doing physical therapy, giving me medicine, food, washing me etc.

Before the surgery I had already bought a Eletro-muscle stimulation training device. This device has been much more effective in the past than regular training, and Fitbone confirmed that I could use it savely. That way I hope to keep my muscle loss to a minum.

Today, I was looking at an additional device, the vibrational plates, as there is some new research showing that it helps accelerate the bone healing.

THere is research that they help in healings bone fractures, but of course I am not sure when I would be able to use them as I can put full weight on the fitbones.

TOday, 3 days after surgery I am feeling fine.
Of course it is boring but I am able to work quite productively.

Today they also removed the cable inside my penis, which was scary as I had read from Bohemian that is was painful, but for me it was not a big deal.


It really bothers me to see how hard it is to lift my legs. I hope that muscles will come back soon, as the constant anathesia was removed today.

Everyday I have to use a stretching machine to bend my knees for 1 hour. At first I was only able to do 90 degrees, but yesterday 110 and today 120. I hope that this does not become less as I start to stretch.

Thanks for your advice!
Good luck with your recovery!

Thanks!
I am actually above the US medium of 5'9! So I feel guilty because I know I should be happy and I know some of you will not understand. But you see, my sister is almost 6 feet, my father 6'2 and my brothers 6'3 and 6'5. In that environment I was always have been the little one and will continue to be.
But when I went abroad to China, India, and Latam I noticed that felt much more comfortable. So I just wanted to keep this feeling of comfort.

It is 1380 euro for a single room per month and 1500 euro for a double room.
They have a gym, an small pool, and 24 assistance if needed.
I took the double room as it has a nice balcony and a lot of sunlight.

I had operation almost 3 weeks ago. Everything went fine. Fitbone great. Dr. Monegal great. Clinica Diagonal great. Residency Mic Sant Jordi great.
But last week suddenly by fitbone in my left leg stopped responding. The next day Dr. Monegal came to the residency and also was not able to get it to work. So already the next day I went back to the clinic to replace the receptor of the Fitbone. Again I had to undergo surgery! :-(
But the worst was that it was found that not only the receptor had broken, but also the fitbone itself. So I talked to the engineer and even the director of Fitbone directly, and they said they have no explanation how this could have happened and this never should have happened and never had happened before.
Nonetheless, I had to undergo yet another surgery to get the fitbone replace with a new fitbone the next day!
Dr. Monegal was great in this situation, he was depressed as he could not deliver perfection due to a failure of the fitbone, showed a lot of empathy, and promised he will do everything to make my recovery as smooth as possible. He told me not to worry about any of the costs of the hospital nor of the fitbone or operation, that he would take charge of that, even though the fitbone failure was not his fault but of the company Wittenstein.

I would still recommend Dr. Monegal and fitbone 100%.
But in regards to Fitbone, it also depends on my conversation with the representatives of Wittenstein (make of Fitbone), who is flying to Barcelona, day after tomorrow. I expect them to assume full responsibility, express their empathy, say "sorry" and do not make me pay for the faulty fitbone or at least give me a discount. Let's see.