Man, no problems at all.
I did this:
The first time around I was super scared but I noticed that if I start twisting the leg very gently and slowly, it’ll get to a point where it just starts hurting (your muscles I guess)… and so as soon as I hit that point (could be 10…15 degrees, who knows) I stopped and left it there for a few seconds until the strain subsided.
Then once my leg relaxed at that angle (usually it took about 20 seconds or so) and I relaxed and the tension in my body eased off, I then pushed a little further until again, I started feeling a little pain (I never pushed it “through the pain”) and so I then repeated the same until at some point it’ll click
First time I really took a long time…. But then all subsequent sessions became exponentially easier.
One thing that may help the first few times is if you have pillows or some sort of support for the dangling leg, that’ll remove also the extra effort that your arms would have to do, so that you can really relax the leg and muscles as much as possible and just concentrate on gently twisting it
Postop day 10
So basically I'm at 2cm now.
Training 2X time at the gym for 2 hour sessions each + 3X sessions of clicking in 8 hour intervals + eating 4000 calories a day + dealing with the fact that I have two broken bones and I am disabled is taking 99% of my time.
I have improved my movability, since I started elevating my legs more during my sleep and resting time (I had a lot of fluid in my legs and that helped to drain that and thus my movability improved).
Basically, it seems like one the main ideas about LL is:
- You train gym/PT and you feel much better afterwards, that improves your movability and recovery
- You click to lengthen the bone - That destroys what you accomplished above
You are in that circle. It is super difficult because you train very hard for 5-6 hours every day, but then some clicking sessions elongate your muscles and they quickly forget what they got.
The trainers here say that after you finish clicking, you need to continue the same training for 3 extra weeks and then the muscles will gain everything, since you don't stretch them more from the bone.
I am very tired and really want this to end soon. But I am giving everything I have (clicking at 2am in the morning is really hard)
I can't stress how hard it is to be disabled, not being able to lift something from the floor, or spending a lot of time on things that are trivial when you are normal.
Also - anyone of you considering a non-weight bearing method - please be carefull. I think that several months in a wheelchair i would have got shocked.
Congratulations!
a) In Athens, we did not use a bicycle in the hospital
b) In Athens, we got a bicycle delivered to our place. Some people are able to mount it day 1 after leaving the hospital, some are not.
What was your experience like with these two things above?
Quote from: SpeedDialer on January 29, 2023, 12:28:32 AMCongratulations!
a) In Athens, we did not use a bicycle in the hospital
b) In Athens, we got a bicycle delivered to our place. Some people are able to mount it day 1 after leaving the hospital, some are not.
What was your experience like with these two things above?
Hi,
So basically every patient of Guichet must have a bike in their residence and do 60-90 minutes of bike a day. You can split that time with biking at the gym, which I usually like more. Guichet says that biking is one of the most important things, because it drains our the fluid from you system and cleans the muscle system.
Guichet has about 4-5 bikes at this office so you just borrow one from him and they are being passed by the patients.
He will try to get you on a bike the same day of surgery, but if you are weak you would bike the day after. I was too dizzy the day of surgery and preferred to stay at the hospital for 1 night, leaving noon the day after.
So, I had my 10 day postop X-ray. My bone is forming strong and Guichet decided to increase me to 10X3 click per DAY. this is a huge amount of clicking but he also wants me to catch up with about 20 clicks that I had missed so far. I believe 30 clicks a day will happen for about 2-3 days before he gets me back to 21 clicks again.
Basically, I expect to reach 4cm at 21 days postop. This is hyper fast. My goal is between 4-5cm, and I can't get to finish with the already.
The gym training by Guichet 2X times a day really proved itself. My legs feel really strong. I was able to walk without crutches around the apartment. I am currently not using any painkillers (I didn't use any besides the ones I received during surgery).
My sleeping is pretty descent, I actually expected it to be a lot worst from other diaries here. I manage to sleep 85% of my sleeping time. I usually wake up 1-2 times per night for about 5 minutes, move my legs a little in bed, and fall asleep again. I think this must be related to how Guichet is making us so tired with the gym training, that I am waiting just to go to sleep.
I might stop at 4.5cm, as this will get me to 181cm, and I just feel that clicks and lengthening are not easy for the body. I want to begin my recovery soon and start to gradually return to normal life.
In any case, I will not do more than 5cm, as I found that lowering the clicks at that stage would just take too long for me to get more height (from 5 to 6 is almost 1month, which is what I get from 0 to 4.5cm).
Quote from: WishMeLuck on January 29, 2023, 12:03:54 PMSo, I had my 10 day postop X-ray. My bone is forming strong and Guichet decided to increase me to 10X3 click per DAY. this is a huge amount of clicking but he also wants me to catch up with about 20 clicks that I had missed so far. I believe 30 clicks a day will happen for about 2-3 days before he gets me back to 21 clicks again.
Basically, I expect to reach 4cm at 21 days postop. This is hyper fast. My goal is between 4-5cm, and I can't get to finish with the already.
The gym training by Guichet 2X times a day really proved itself. My legs feel really strong. I was able to walk without crutches around the apartment. I am currently not using any painkillers (I didn't use any besides the ones I received during surgery).
My sleeping is pretty descent, I actually expected it to be a lot worst from other diaries here. I manage to sleep 85% of my sleeping time. I usually wake up 1-2 times per night for about 5 minutes, move my legs a little in bed, and fall asleep again. I think this must be related to how Guichet is making us so tired with the gym training, that I am waiting just to go to sleep.
I might stop at 4.5cm, as this will get me to 181cm, and I just feel that clicks and lengthening are not easy for the body. I want to begin my recovery soon and start to gradually return to normal life.
In any case, I will not do more than 5cm, as I found that lowering the clicks at that stage would just take too long for me to get more height (from 5 to 6 is almost 1month, which is what I get from 0 to 4.5cm).
This is a crazy fast lengthening. Is there any worry its too fast?
And what do you mean your bone is forming fast. Having consolidation 10 days post op is almost unfathomable. Do you see slight traces of bone formation or something? Id be really interested to see the x-rays but no pressure.
1. what do you do for 2 hours per session twice a day in the gym?
2. what resistance do you put on the stationary bike when you bike 90 min per day? you put it at 1-2 out of 10 or 5 out of 10 maybe?
3. what is your natural sleeping position? are you usually a side sleeper?
4. do you find it comfortable to sleep on your side with a pillow between the knees or the bone breaks hurt in that position?
5. why do you plan for just 5cm? do you know your xray measurements of the femur and tibia?
Quote from: WishMeLuck on January 29, 2023, 11:56:07 AMHi,
So basically every patient of Guichet must have a bike in their residence and do 60-90 minutes of bike a day. You can split that time with biking at the gym, which I usually like more. Guichet says that biking is one of the most important things, because it drains our the fluid from you system and cleans the muscle system.
Guichet has about 4-5 bikes at this office so you just borrow one from him and they are being passed by the patients.
He will try to get you on a bike the same day of surgery, but if you are weak you would bike the day after. I was too dizzy the day of surgery and preferred to stay at the hospital for 1 night, leaving noon the day after.
This is something I prefer about Guichet honestly. Even though he is expensive and there was that lawsuit with unicorn, I think he's one of the best options for people who are near his locations (london, Milan, Paris, etc). Ex: trying to optimize various things about training/diet. It's good he has the bike/pedal machine ready in the hospital, it's like why not? It has benefit and basically zero downside for the patient + nurses around to help the patient mount it.
I think if I do tibias someday I think I will ask the (different) doctor in Athens to at least have a very small smooth magnetic pedal machine on the floor bedside in the hospital room you can use while sitting in bed. If any of you guys are thinking of doing any kind of LL surgery in Athens, I would recommend you ask the Athens doctor to have a small magnetic pedal machine on the floor you can use while sitting in bed in the hospital itself. I know that this diary is for Dr. Jean-Marc Guichet, not for surgeries in Athens, but there's the same clicking nail option (g-nail). It seems like Dr. Dimitrios Giotikas is willing to do it from what I asked but not enough people have asked him for him to bother with it.
Quote from: lessthanavg8300 on January 29, 2023, 12:33:30 PMThis is a crazy fast lengthening. Is there any worry its too fast?
And what do you mean your bone is forming fast. Having consolidation 10 days post op is almost unfathomable. Do you see slight traces of bone formation or something? Id be really interested to see the x-rays but no pressure.
Hi, I'll post the X-rays when I receive them digitally.
Basically, Guichet says that patients that go through his protocol might fuse very fast. He mentioned one patient that did 7.5cm and his bones were fused in 1 month! In addition, if you forget a couple of clicks you will get a phone call from Guichet himself yelling at you that your bones could fuse and that could become a pricy surgery, and that you must click as fast as he tells you too (Guichet is following everything you do, eat, breath using a one-drive spreadsheet, where you must enter all the data to yourself every day).
If you don't eat enough calories - he will call you. If you don't train enough - he will call you, if you are late for the gym - his secratery will call yelling at you.
He really believes in his protocol, so I just decided to blindly confide with it. That made be basically have 0 personal time (no tv, not fun, no nothing). I just train, eat, click, train, eat, click, train, train, stretch...
Quote from: bocklecrt2 on January 29, 2023, 02:01:35 PM1. what do you do for 2 hours per session twice a day in the gym?
2. what resistance do you put on the stationary bike when you bike 90 min per day? you put it at 1-2 out of 10 or 5 out of 10 maybe?
3. what is your natural sleeping position? are you usually a side sleeper?
4. do you find it comfortable to sleep on your side with a pillow between the knees or the bone breaks hurt in that position?
5. why do you plan for just 5cm? do you know your xray measurements of the femur and tibia?
1 - 2 hours per session in the gym includes bike, eliptical, and about 10 excercises and stretching routines, each with 50 reps.
2 - Guichet want's you to go maximum with the bike. So we are talking about at least 5 in the resistance (he will yell at you that you can do more and must increase so you will not lose you muscles).
3- naturally I am a side sleeper and never slept on my back (holding a girl besides me is usually the best when I have one 
). Here, I am sleeping only on my back. If you train hard during the day until your eyes start to close on you - you will fall asleep this way.
4- side hurts because of the incisions, and also it is a big scary when you have a ratcheting nail because the leg could twist and this is something I am always afraid of.
5- I plan on going for 5cm because I just want to continue with my life and not walk around for months looking like a spider. I am not very short to begin with, that would take me to 181.5cm. I believe this is taller than Leonardo Dicaprio or Brad Pitt, and I don't think they suffer from height. So I think life is not just height and want to go back to focus on other things. I don't see investing an additional full month just for clicking to get to 6cm (more risk, more time off work, possible complications, harder recovery).
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