My lengthening journey with Dr Hoondong Lee

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Hi everybody, I decided to start a dairy of my journey of lengthening. It's such an extraordinary experience that I feel would be worthwhile to make notes. I have benefitted so much from reading other veteran's dairies, I feel that it's also my time to contributes and share.

I had my surgery on May 26th with Dr Lee at the Severance Hospital. Due to financial reasons, I chose the LON method instead of internal. The surgery itself was painless. I did spinal anesthesia with sedation. The night of the surgery was not as bad as I imagined. Dr Lee came and told me that the surgery was successful. I was in the hospital for five days. They taught me exercises and how to dress my pins, gave me necessary medications, and discharged me.

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I have been lengthening at the apartment I rented close to the Severance Hospital for more than two weeks now. Let me just say my lengthening process turned out completely out of my expectation. I was told to lengthen 1mm per day for two weeks before I take my first post op X-ray. From the very first day, my lengthening has been excruciating. I am naturally a very flexible person. To prepare for this surgery, I have been doing Yoga and various stretching exercises for a year. Even Dr Lee said that he felt my soft tissues are very soft during the surgery, that I should be fine lengthening to 7cm. But no, I had muscle pain, skin pain, nerve pain, tendons pain the first two weeks. Yesterday I went and got my first X-ray, and according to the X-ray, even though I was turning at 1mm rate, due to pin bent, I only lengthened 7mm! According to Dr Lee, I might be one of those super unfortunate person who experience excruciating pain from beginning to the end. OMG!

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@TheRisingShorty: Thank you for your advice! My starting height is 150cm. At this point, since the pain is so bad, I am happy to lengthen just 5cm, maybe even less. Yes, I do agree with you that 1mm could be the reason why I am experiencing so much pain. I asked Dr Lee to slow me down to 0.75mm/day.

@Medium Drink of Water: Thank you for the encouraging words! I am reading your dairy, and am loving every minute of it! Yes, Dr Lee prescribes three kinds of pain meds. Tramadol for weaker pain med, Targin for stronger pain med, and Lyrica for nerve pain. I was trying to avoid taking Targin and Lyrica because of the side effect. However, my nerve pain is driving me crazy, I am back on Lyrica. I was reading many of the dairies from Beijing, seems like Tramadol is the main pain med patients are taking with good results. However, it seems that Tramadol doesn't do much for me.

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Absolutely! I will ask Dr Lee for my X-ray and post it here.

Main while, I started to stand per the doctors request. Dr Lee said that walking is not very important, however, standing is. Yesterday was my first day of standing. It felt like a thousand needles going through my feet and shin. Today was definitely better

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Quote from: kusop on June 18, 2014, 08:21:43 AMare you male or a female

I am female

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Quote from: ShortyMcShort on June 18, 2014, 03:17:56 PMDont mean to sound rude but can you tell us about one of the most important aspects in CLL, the price. We all know Dr Lee's prices has gone through the roof since he moved to the new hospital. Simply unaffordable now, actually I think unaffordable is an understatement, its a rip off now. Add to that the internal Precise dilemmas he's had with two previous patients and you can see why there hasnt been any more Dr Lee diaries lately, that is again only my opinion so its a subjective thing.

I pretty much put pen on paper that I would do my first LL with Dr Lee, that was until he raised his prices exponentially. So could you please outline your cost for the surgery itself, the apartment you are at and how did you find it, do they help you look for an apartment? I heard looking for an apartment in South Korea is quite hard. And everything else in between.
Thanks for the diary, been looking forward to some more Dr Lee diaries but for obvious reasons there hasnt been anymore since his price hike. Seems to cost more than Dr Paley, Guichet and co now

Of course! I understand your concern. In fact, it was such a big concern for me that I almost aborted the idea of doing with Dr Lee after the price raise. However, after I had my in person consultation with Dr. Lee, I realized that it's not as bad as I thought. I decided to do the LON method because of less scars, and I want to avoid the 2nd traumatic surgery like the LATN method. The price for the surgery including 7 days of hospital staying is 33,500,000 Korean Won, which is roughly about $33,500 USD. Originally Dr Lee offered this hotel that's close to the hospital for $80 per day during the distraction period, but i found it to be still quite expensive for 3-4 months of staying. I then found this Korean version of Craigslist, and was able to rent a studio online that is high-rise with elevator for about $1200 per month including wifi and utilities. After I am discharged from the hospital, Dr. Lee also requires patients to visit him every two weeks. Each time, it is about $300 for X-ray, two weeks of meds, and doctor's visit. The good thing is right now, Dr. Lee is offering the Stem Cell Therapy for free, which costs $5000. All in all, everything together including food, rent, surgery, doctor's visit is about $40,000 USD for the LON method. I know it is still more expensive than going to China or India, especially considering my native language is Chinese. However, growing up in China, I know how the hygienes can be in those develop countries. I read many dairies of LL veterans getting their pins infected, getting horrible complications in India. To me personally, I would prefer to pay $10,000 more to get a world class surgeon in a world class hospital. Lengthening surgery is no joke, I would rather be safe than sorry.

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Quote from: Gichelu on June 18, 2014, 04:25:35 PMGood luck, Classical! Sorry about all the pain you are in. Are you in touch with other patients of Dr Lee that you can hang out with so you are not lonely over there at least?

Thank you! Unfortunately, since this price raise, there is no international patients here. Sometimes I envy those who are doing the surgery in India and China. It is always nice to have others whom are going through the same thing to hang out and exchange experiences. 

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These are the pictures of my legs right now. In the first picture, you can see that I am wearing those specially shoes 24/7 to avoid ballerina foot. The 2nd and 3rd picture shows my incision. Dr. Lee is such an artist, I am very happy with my scars so far (3 weeks post-op).

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Yes, I consider myself very lucky to have Dr Lee to operate on me

In terms of PT, there isn't any available. Dr Lee and his assistant gave me a set of exercises such has lifting my legs, towel pulling the back of the feet, standing... He said as long as I do these exercises religiously, I don't need PT. I only stayed in the hospital for seven days after my surgery. The hospital food for my standard is quite bad (but don't listen to me, I am just spoiled. My dad is a chef, and he is the only person who's cooking satisfies me . One thing that is super important is that you have to either bring somebody to take care of you or you would have to hire a caretaker. I am very lucky that my mom came with me, and took care of me since the beginning of the surgery. To be honest, I can't imagine how I would live without her. Going to the bathroom is a big problem, not to mention cooking, cleaning, etc...  Korea is not a cheap country, I imagine to hire a caretaker would be very expensive. The good thing here is takeouts seem to be quite cheap. You can probably have people deliver food to you for $6 per meal.

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Yes, I will take a picture once I reach 5cm, however that's going to be in at least 1.5 months.

Everybody, I need help! I am almost 4 weeks post-op, just started standing about five days ago. Right now, when I straighten my knees, I can only stand about 1 minute each time, otherwise my shin starts to hurt. I think if I let my knees curve a bit I can stand more, but Dr Lee is big on keeping the knees straight. I read many other dairies, and it seems at this point of lengthening, people are already walking 1-2 hours a day. Am I super behind? Should I just let my leg hurt and keep on standing for longer anyway?