Quote from: KiloKAHN on November 07, 2014, 07:01:33 PMUpdate: 11/7/2014
Yesterday I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon that my GP referred me to, conveniently located a mere 5 minute drive away from my office. The co-pay was $40 because I had to get an x-ray of my tibias in the radiology department before meeting the ortho. The two guys doing the x-rays were very curious about the Ilizarov frames and one of them was in disbelief that I chose to lengthen my legs. After his initial shock he didn't pester me about it though. After my x-rays were done I saw the ortho, who was genuinely interested in my case. He's not an Ilizarov surgeon but he's had people come in with frames who were operated on for discrepancy or deformity. When I told him I voluntarily lengthened my legs and said it was primarily due to social situations being less than ideal for me while having very tall half-siblings, I was prepared for a response along the lines of "you're an idiot for doing this to yourself" or general rudeness that other lengtheners have experienced from their orthos back home. To my surprise he was sympathetic about it and just told me that it's unfortunate that I felt I had to go to such an extreme to feel better about myself.
My GP who wrote the referral put down that I had gone to India for lengthening and he asked about who I went to see over there. I told him a little about my multiple consultations and how I decided on Dr Parihar due to my good impression of him and his prior fellowship with Dr Paley, to which my ortho replied "Dr Paley is the king". Looks like Paley is held in high regard by orthos across the board, not just Ilizarov surgeons. He examined my legs a bit, going over the pin sites and checking to see if there was any soreness before looking at the x-rays I had just taken. To my relief he said my healing looks to be going exceptionally well and that I have "massive regenerate" in both legs. He gave me a prescription for oral antibiotics in case of pin site infection later and said I can just get over the counter supplements for my calcium and zinc intake. I'm supposed to continue weight bearing as much as I'm able and see him every three weeks.
Right now I still have a lot of aching in the calves, but a lot of it is on my hamstrings and near my hips, which I believe is from the atrophy. The left calf is a little swollen but I took an ibuprofen which helped it go down. I thought all the aches and soreness would go away as soon as distraction was over but I guess it's more of a gradual thing.
Glad to hear you are doing fine. You're almost done, congrats!
One tip I want to give you is to walk 20-30 min a day in the evening around your house/apartment, try to walk completely normal and also you don't have to worry about other people, no will notice your frames in the evening under pants. That really boosted my consolidation by a ton, but be careful, don't overdo it or you will get some ugly infections and that will slow your consolidation process.
Good luck!
No More Mal-Kahn-Tent - External Tibias - Dr Parihar
Hi,
Are u in UK? Im LL patient. I added u in skype, pls accept.
Thanks.
Quote from: 123 on November 07, 2014, 08:14:28 PMGlad to hear you are doing fine. You're almost done, congrats!
One tip I want to give you is to walk 20-30 min a day in the evening around your house/apartment, try to walk completely normal and also you don't have to worry about other people, no will notice your frames in the evening under pants. That really boosted my consolidation by a ton, but be careful, don't overdo it or you will get some ugly infections and that will slow your consolidation process.
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice. Right now I still have some ballerina and the soreness in my legs is incredible from standing, so I'm unable to pick up the walker and move it forward without feeling like I'm going to tip over like a tree. Probably have some ways to go before I'm okay in that regard. Right now I've been standing as much as possible as it seems like that's the most I can do for recovery besides my PT exercises.
Hey does Doctor Parihar always put the pins in the middle of the leg? I think one Doctor Sarin patient said the middle ones damages your fascia. Is that true? Do you feel its damaged?
He puts the pins in the middle for a lot of reconstruction cases but the difference is that he puts the middle pins during the initial surgery, whereas with me he put it on at the end so I didn't get a long scar in the middle from lengthening as I'm a cosmetic case. You won't get any fascia damage from it.
Here's a video I took while in the back of an auto rickshaw in Mumbai. You get to see a glimpse of what the environment is like over there.
Hey Kilo, in the end how did you end up paying for the hotel? Did you pay in monthly instalments or did you pay for everything at the end of your stay?
Also how often did they clean the room like changing bed sheets, pillows, towels and so on?
And in that video did you have the fixators on?
They ended up telling me that I had to pay them every two weeks, which I did through debit and credit card.
Room service would call me every couple days to ask if I wanted the room cleaned. You can tell them no if you're not in the mood to have a bunch of people in your room cleaning it at once or you could ask the front desk to clean your room daily. They were very flexible with it.
I had the frames on in the video although you can't see them. I had to take one of those rickshaws to get to Dr Parihar's clinic every two weeks. They're very cheap. It cost me about 30 cents each way for a ride on one of them.
Were there any surcharges through debit/credit card?
Also how did you keep tabs on how much you were spending every fortnight on stuff like food and what ever else you used in the hotel?
Did you have anything to cover over the fixators while on those rickshaw rides every two weeks or did you just wear shorts and let them be?
If the latter, did people stare a lot at them while you were out in public on your way to Dr Parihar?
Every time the hotel staff bought food for me I'd have to sign a receipt and I'd record the price on a word doc, then at the end of the two weeks they would staple all the receipts together with the bill and give me a copy. If it was something I had them purchase for me outside the hotel then they'd give a receipt and I'd pay in cash from the ATM right when they gave me the receipt.
There wasn't any surcharge with my Discover card but Wells Fargo had a transaction fee of 3%.
I just went on the rickshaw wearing stretchy gym shorts without anything covering the frames. It was a little tricky entering it but the hotel staff was always very helpful getting me in there. I suppose I could have covered my frames with a small blanket when pushed outside on the wheelchair but I didn't bother with it. There were a lot of stares from people but most didn't say anything. The most inquisitive about the frames were actually others in the hospital. Most are there for deformity correction, injury, and leg length discrepancy, requiring only one frame. Seeing me with a frame on each leg got other patients curious and some would ask questions about what happened to me.
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