Live Life Taller butchered my ankles

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Hi everyone,
So I did four segment lengthening in 💩stanbul with Live Life Taller between May and September of 2022. 5 cm tibias May-July and 7 cm femur July-September, both surgeries were LON method, to hit goal of 180 cm. I was gullible and fell for their social media and thought to hell with it I’ll take the risk. I didn’t have $200,000 for surgery stateside so I just went for it.

Halil the butcher always mentions his attorney or “advocate” as they are called in 💩stanbul to threaten patients who speak out, but they’re so fking stupid they don’t understand how defamation/libel/slander law works in the United States, where if your statements can be proven factual with hard evidence it’s perfectly legal to speak your mind. I have medical records from Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles documenting the corrective surgeries I’ve needed so I’m not afraid of saying any of this.

There’s been plenty of discussion on this forum about the out of control rates of infection at LLT, ranging from minor infections to severe osteomyelitis, I actually remember being in the elevator at their “rehabilitation center” last summer with the Japanese kid who almost needed amputation back home in Japan (https://twitter.com/height_llt) after dealing with severe infection from LLT, and luckily I never got a single infection while there because I didn’t follow their bull💩 wound care regimen.

In order to conserve company resources they tell LON patients not to shower until after fixator removal and their “nurses” come like once a week to change the gauze on the fixators. Any western surgeon will tell you this is completely insane. The gauze should be changed every day and you should shower every day. I spent my own money to stock up on gauze using the Turkish delivery app Yemeksepeti and showered every day and changed my own bandages, carpet bombed the pin sites with iodine, etc and just let the medical team do their thing once a week even though I didn’t need it. 

Where things went south for me, and something I’m not sure has been mentioned on this forum before (maybe, could be wrong) is Halil the butcher is so incompetent that with tibia patients he removes the syndesmotic screws at the ankle during the fixator removal surgery, which creates a tibiofibular subluxation, a type of dislocation that needs to be surgically repaired or will result in the patient being unable to walk/permanently disabled long term. I found this out after sending X-rays from LLT to Dr. Michael Assayag in Baltimore over WhatsApp. He spotted it within 30 seconds of looking at the X-rays and said it’s a “trademark complication” from Turkish limb lengthening surgeons. 

I left 💩stanbul early after the diagnosis from Dr. Assayag and a close family member passing away suddenly. I finished lengthening at home and had the corrections staged across two surgeries so I could weight bear on one leg while recovering and avoid being wheelchair bound. My first corrective surgery was in October and the second was five weeks ago in April. The tibia surgery also created a valgus deformity in the right leg which needed to be straightened out using a new internal nail and plating, and while I was in 💩stanbul Sedat lied to me about it. I pointed out that my right tibia was starting to look crooked, and he said it was “normal” and from “the pressure created by the fixator”.

I honestly feel lucky, it could have been so much worse. I never lengthened more than .75 mm per day on the tibias or 1 mm per day on the femurs, even with the physical therapists pressuring me to lengthen at a faster rate “to prevent early consolidation” which is actually very rare. It’s so disgusting how they pressure people to lengthen 1.5 mm per day or even faster in some cases.

While I was in the hospital in October I did a group call over WhatsApp with Sedat and Halil and told the butcher what a piece of   he is. I asked him why LLT is the only fking place on Earth that lengthens 1.5 mm per day, asked him why he’s not invited to present at orthopedic conferences his technique of lengthening faster if it’s so great, sounds great if you can shorten patients time in fixator, right? I don’t think anyone has ever talked to him the way I did, I could tell he was furious. He said he did “everything perfect” and I asked him what caused the ankle subluxations and valgus deformity then? Did I cause it? Was it magical faeries? Garden gnomes? I told him he couldn’t even work as a janitor in an American hospital, that his medical license would be set on fire if he performed surgery like that in the States. He was so fking pissed off he blocked me on WhatsApp.

I told Sedat that it’s so obvious that he’s just lying about everything, I mean I was literally talking to them while laying in a hospital bed in the #1 rated hospital in California for orthopedic surgery, #2 in the entire United States, I’ve got medical imaging and a proper diagnosis from two of the top board certified American orthopedic surgeons showing the obvious malpractice from Halil (Dr. Marecek at Cedars is an amazing trauma surgeon if anyone here needs to get fixed up) and he’s just gaslighting saying they did everything perfect. How fking stupid do you think I am man? I mean other than going to 💩stanbul, obviously that was stupid as  , but do you really expect me to believe all of this is wrong, my ankles were fine, my leg wasn’t crooked, up is down and the sky is red not blue, like just shut the fk up you sociopath.

As an American, I’m no fan of the USA. Mass shootings, opiate addiction from greedy drug companies, this country is far from perfect. But it’s at least reassuring that a shop of horrors like LLT could never, ever exist in California. It would just immediately get shut down by the government. Halil would be barred from practicing medicine for life and would end up working as a literal butcher slicing taco meat as a street vendor on San Vicente boulevard. A place that fked up simply could not exist here, and for that at least I am thankful.

You could maybe, m a y b e forgive the very low level staff at LLT, the physical therapists and “medical team” for not understanding what exactly they are complicit in, I mean they’re just kids in their early 20s who grew up in a developing country with out of control inflation and no real future, making the equivalent of $4 per hour giving pointless massages to patients with infections and deformities like anything they’re doing fking matters, who have no exposure to the standards and rigor of western medical institutions, but the same can not be said for Sedat. He and his brother actually grew up in Germany, so he actually knows how legit, reputable medical practices are supposed to operate.

If you’re reading this and thinking about going there for surgery, please for the love of god just go somewhere else. LLT keeps raising their prices so it’s not even really going to be an affordable option for long, you’re better off just going to Parihar in India if you’re budget conscious, at least then you’ll know you’re in safe, capable hands.

Turkey is the Land of Lies. This kind of surgery is just too dangerous and extreme to risk in a rat hole like that.

Luckily my left ankle feels great now and my right ankle is coming along nicely since corrective surgery in April, consolidation is fine in weight bearing segments (had to take calcium + vitamin D for a while once I was back in LA to speed things up) so I should be walking normally in a few months and can finally move on with my life and new height. I’m so thankful I didn’t get any of the serious complications other LLT patients have. I feel so bad for them.

My username says it all. Don’t go to Turkey.

One of the initial X-rays from September after leaving 💩stanbul showing premature removal of syndesmotic screws and tibiofibular subluxation:
https://ibb.co/1Qczs6z

Left ankle subluxation correction by replacing syndesmotic fixation:
https://ibb.co/jJZTp5f

Right ankle subluxation correction and valgus correction using syndesmotic fixation, new internal nail and plating (sorry posted wrong link first time):
https://ibb.co/b1WHT3Z

Scars:
https://ibb.co/VSBWLzg

https://ibb.co/3svktwm

https://ibb.co/RBWG33L

https://ibb.co/QmxzC5d

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Lol at this forum censoring my post, apologies for my foul language 😅

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Quote from: shortisnotfun on May 15, 2023, 11:13:26 AMThanks for posting. I was also butchered in Turkey by the piece of shi/t Yuksel Yurttas. He gave me crooked legs and then lied about it. He gave my friend crooked legs and infection and nerve issues.

Stay away from these criminals.

I’m so sorry that happened to you and your friend. They really are some of the worst people on the planet. Of course the Turkish government couldn’t possibly care less. Look at the recent earthquake that killed 50,000 people because the government ignored building codes for earthquake safety. They can’t even be bothered to implement safety standards for building construction. Worthless place.

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Quote from: shortisnotfun on May 15, 2023, 11:48:34 AMYes, it's true. The country just has no medical standards at all. Everything in the medical system there is just a facade and good-enough and "eyeballing" it. Yuksel Yurttas is supposed to be a professor in orthopedics there in Turkey and look at how many patients he's fked up. Just shows you the quality of education and medical in Turkey. It's trash. I curse that moron every single day I wake up.

Honestly!! How does someone become a “professor” if they are that incompetent. It’s completely ridiculous. They have no standards.

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Quote from: iwillgrow on May 22, 2023, 08:09:53 PMI’m sorry for what happened to you, I hope you heal completely. I went to them too and their incompetence is unbelievable, their lies too. I screwed up by going there too and now have deformed legs and still can’t walk properly. It’s common for butcher halil Buldu to leave screws in on patients, he’s usually on red bull and nicotine while performing surgery so you can’t expect any more

While I was in the hotel of people they butchered they have I did see too many people with problems in their tibias. I always assumed he fked up their knees, didn’t think he always screwed up their ankles.

Btw, I also went to turkey and called him an incompetent butcher to his face. He also blocked me and said he would get in contact with his “advisers.” Maybe this is how he scares his Asian patients from posting anything which I know for a fact there’s tons of them crippled

And I agree with your sentiments on turkey. People should really not go there for anything medical. I would also just in general not go there, people are rude and xenophobic.

Also did they also invade your privacy? Taking pictures of you whenever they could?

Yeah each of the few times time he checked in to see how I was doing (he has so many “patients” (victims) he can’t possibly have enough time for them all, which in and of itself is dangerous) he brought almost the entire staff with him in the room so they could film Instagram videos showing how “great I was doing” and it’s such an egregious conflict of interest between a doctor’s responsibility to address a patient’s medical concerns and his desire to promote the company for financial gain, because while they’re filming it’s incredibly awkward to say something is wrong and you need help, which is what they are counting on. They just want you  smiling and giving praise. It’s the kind of thing that would never happen in the United States, they’re just so disgusting and sociopathic it’s beyond comprehension. The whole time I was there I wasn’t even aware of the crippled patients kept separated in the hotel across from the main building, that just adds a whole new dimension to the depravity.

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Quote from: otaviognu on August 10, 2023, 05:00:04 PMI think that Live Life Taller Has been learning with its mistakes and now are doing a decent work.

Wrong again.

When I talked with Halil and Sedat after my first corrective surgery back home in Los Angeles (I needed 2 corrective surgeries because of Halil) and explained to them what went wrong with Halil’s surgeries, they said they did nothing wrong and that “everything was perfect”.

I laughed and said well then why am I in a hospital bed right now recovering from corrective surgery? My ankles are butchered from Istanbul, how did that happen? They didn’t have an answer. I even offered to send proof of my medical records and X-rays.

What is so scary about them is that not only do they make these mistakes, but they are too arrogant and stubborn to admit to it and learn from them. They just insist they’re doing everything the right way. No apology. No admitting of mistake. Nothing. They just lie about everything.

They still encourage 1.5 mm per day lengthening which is dangerous so they can increase patient volume for more money. They still remove the screws at the ankles creating dislocation which requires reconstructive surgery later. They haven’t changed and won’t admit to making mistakes.

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The surgeon owns the company so he’s not incentivized to hire anyone else for profit sharing reasons, and he’s an arrogant psychopath who actually thinks he’s a great surgeon.

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Quote from: BestOfLuck on August 11, 2023, 02:32:00 PMI swear it has to be done on purpose. There are some cases where a patient goes to LLT or WBT and has a successful surgery all around. Then others where the surgeries  are done so poorly  its literally impossible for it to have been done by the same surgeon. Id actually go as far as to say that the surgeon doing the CLL specifically actually knows what hes doing completely but actively butchers patients to make more money off recovery costs.

I remember Sedat saying before the surgeries that if “anything is wrong they’ll fix it for free” (NOT trying to defend them here) but that may be because I paid for the “comprehensive package” and that included some bogus insurance policy and  B) who knows if they would actually honor that agreement (I seriously doubt it)

He kept insisting during the WhatsApp call after reconstructive surgery in Los Angeles that there’s nothing wrong with removing the screws which is ridiculous, so I think he’s just a moron who could only get a medical degree in a rat hole like Turkey.

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Sedat is just the manager, right. He doesn’t have anything to do with the surgeries. However he and Halil both kept insisting during the WhatsApp call (it was a group call) that the techniques LLT use are fine. When I said moron who could only get a medical degree in Turkey I was referring to Halil (won’t call him a doctor, he doesn’t deserve that title)

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Yeah which likely makes things worse. His surgical technique is so poor, if I had let him try to fix my ankles instead of going home to have it done in Los Angeles he probably would have made it even worse. He shouldn’t be operating on anyone. For any reason.