Permanent effects of LL

so in general it seems that the external method is the safest in term of permanent knee problem and pain ,right

Quote from: Mime on December 11, 2013, 09:34:50 PMHi everybody,

To ascertain the long-term effects of LL one has to look at different scenarios. The worst case is being crippled for life, amputations, chronical infections, chronical pains, premature arthritis, etc. The best case is being taller without any negative long-term effects. Everybody hopes for the latter, but what if something out the worst happens? There will be no plan B. And there won't be any going back to the state before LL. Therefore anybody considering LL should be really aware of those risks and really imagine what could happen. Are you really willing to gamble with your health?

Crippled and amputations are the reason why i havent done my LL. Those 2 are the worst case scenario. But i dont know, if u go to a good surgeon, u wouldnt get that.

Quote from: whysoserious on December 12, 2013, 09:07:55 AMCrippled and amputations are the reason why i havent done my LL. Those 2 are the worst case scenario. But i dont know, if u go to a good surgeon, u wouldnt get that.

Right.  If you go to a good surgeon, probably not.  Based on Professor Xia's LL record, I calculated that my risk of being crippled was 0.002%.

But there is always some small risk, nobody will deny that.

Let's just put it this way- you have a 10x higher chance of being crippled on your drive to the hospital than you do under the knife.

As far as long term effects, I think Dr. Birkholtz was on the money with 25% of people having lifelong knee problems.  I'm a little scared of that myself, since I already have pretty bad knees.

Every surgery is a risk, the odds of being crippled and amputations from LL is very very low if you have a good Doctor.   Main concern will be recovery of walking and sporting ability.

Quote from: BilateralDamage on December 12, 2013, 03:25:36 PMLet's just put it this way- you have a 10x higher chance of being crippled on your drive to the hospital than you do under the knife.

As far as long term effects, I think Dr. Birkholtz was on the money with 25% of people having lifelong knee problems.  I'm a little scared of that myself, since I already have pretty bad knees.

Same here. I can easily stomach a 0.002% chance of being crippled, but hate to think of the 25% chance of permanent knee pain. That's really high in my book. Personally, I am very short, but also very athletic. It sucks to know that you can't be the person you want to be, at least socially-speaking, because of a physical limitation like short stature, unless you run a high risk of trading it for another physical limitation that would also inhibit you from becoming your dream self (potentially severely diminished athleticism). I just wish we could have the best of both worlds, and this forum is a huge leap in helping us be informed enough to achieve that.

My thoughts now are that exclusively external LL, with a fully weight-bearing frame, followed by stem cell injections during consolidation may be the safest route for those seeking to avoid knee pain. I have also heard that Dr. Salameh's patented fixator involves inserting pins in a way that completely avoids muscles. I don't know how true this is, but, if true, it might really facilitate complete recovery.

None of the external tibia fixators have pins going through the muscle.  That only happens if the surgeon is incompetent and can't aim the pins properly.

Tall,

Kinda curious to hear more about your athleticism.  What sport(s)?  To make this board more of a community, there should be a section where we can just post threads intro'ing ourselves (maybe talk about why we're here in the first place) and revealing some key info we don't mind sharing.  That would be pretty neat to have.

My gameplan right now is to get femurs first done in May 2014 with PRECICE and then move on to either LON or external tibiae within a year (of course, nothing works according to your plan).  Stem cells + externals sounds like a great idea too.

Quote from: BilateralDamage on December 13, 2013, 04:34:38 AMTall,

Kinda curious to hear more about your athleticism.  What sport(s)?  To make this board more of a community, there should be a section where we can just post threads intro'ing ourselves (maybe talk about why we're here in the first place) and revealing some key info we don't mind sharing.  That would be pretty neat to have.

My gameplan right now is to get femurs first done in May 2014 with PRECICE and then move on to either LON or external tibiae within a year (of course, nothing works according to your plan).  Stem cells + externals sounds like a great idea too.

Hey BD,

I love your idea of an page where we can introduce and get to know each other. It would definitely lend itself very nicely to our smaller-sized community. Maybe we can create a whole section dedicated to just that.

I found it really cool to hear someone (besides myself  ) be interested in my athletic hobbies. On the other site I always used to get the impression that the general attitude was "if you don't play sports for a living, then your athleticism post-LL doesn't matter". But sports are a great way for people of all ages and sizes to find happiness, self esteem, friendship, and relaxation. It really makes me sad when people have to miss out due to physical limitations. My community hosts quite a few sports leagues for people with various handicaps, and I can definitely say that the therapeutic and healing potential of sport (and exercise in general), on so many levels, can't be underestimated.

Personally, I've always been a huge fan of cross-country and track running. When I was a younger man, I was a regional cross country champion. My best events were the 10K and 5k, but I wasn't too shabby at the 1600 meter and 3200 meter races either. Cross country was really a special place for me because I feel like longer-distance running is really one of the relatively few areas of high-intensity sports where smaller people can really thrive. If you've seen the size of olympic marathon runners you know what I mean. However, I've gotten old enough that I'm pretty sure I won't be a cross country champion anytime soon (but hey, who can predict the future  ). I'm under 30, but I've definitely passed my fastest days. That being said, I still do lots and lots of running and biking, in all sorts of settings. Trail running and mountain biking are among my favorites. I also rock climb, and have heard that most professional climbers have shorter arms and a relatively big leg-length to body-length ratio. So LL'ers would be perfect candidates! 

Height has always been a source of insecurity for me. I've had a degree of height neurosis ever since I was cut from my high school basketball team years ago for being too short (just like MJ, except I didn't have a growth spurt later on  ). I refocused a lot of my energy on training for cross country and that took my happiness to new levels. Many years later, I definitely feel good about myself, but frequently feel like I just can't be the leader or alpha in social situations because very few actually take short guys as seriously as teller people in many contexts. I also have a thing for taller girls, funny given my own height. I find that quite a few of them more down to earth and less superficial since a lot of them have also sometimes had a hard time on account of their height. But it's sure ironic that many of them still won't date a short guy. Personally, I've lost jobs and awards to less qualified candidates, and feel almost certain that my height played a role in it, at least subconsciously. Obviously, the problem is with society and not with me, but Rome wasn't built in a day and society isn't going to change overnight. My ideal plan is to successfully get LL, but then, as an average to tall person (depending on how much and how many times I ultimately lengthen, treat short people exactly the same as anyone tall, helping society to change. I'm just getting the surgery because that change won't be fast enough to make me happy, and I don't know if I'll be around when society fully changes (although I'm sure it WILL happen eventually). I also have always felt like I'm a tall guy who got a short guy's body. Kinda strange, I know, but that's honestly a good way to describe it. LL will definitely be my only cosmetic surgery.

I am alright losing some athleticism to LL, since I am well beyond my days of competition and wanting to "win" in athletics. But, and it's a major but, if I lost my ability to run 10 kilometers at a speed that actually feels like running and not jogging, or my ability to jump, climb, play football decently, or squat, I know I'd be really depressed. Plus, if I did become taller, why not pick up basketball again, since height's seriously the only thing that's been holding me back all these years, at least in basketball?

Sports have been such a big part of my existence and I plan to participate in them for the rest of my life. I know this isn't necessarily the ideal attitude to have on an LL forum, but I'm willing to spend 3 years and a lot of dedication recovering, and at least I'll have very fit and flexible legs when I actually get to start my LL. If anything should go very wrong and I did end up crippled, I would resort to kayaking and stay active that way. It's important to be optimistic, but with a surgery like LL, a back-up plan definitely won't hurt.

If anyone else here is also a sportsman or has other cool hobbies, I'd genuinely love to hear about those as well! It's so great seeing that the members of this forum are truly devoted to learning about how LL affects the body long term, and how possible it is to fully recover. Thanks BilateralDamage for the great ideas!

Yeah, I think this site is far from dead.  The problem I see is that there aren't very many trusted methods of communication on the subject of leg lengthening.  So much misinformation gets thrown around and it's near impossible to verify anything, and really the only certainty we have are the doctors who perform the surgeries- most notably those who have been recognized for their involvement in CLL for several years now. 

For those of us who are detail-oriented (because why wouldn't you be when you plan on having your legs cut open) it's hard not to feel a little phased by the profound lack of verifiable information out there.  For example, in the recent discussion of the long term effects of CLL and the possibility that one might sustain knee problems from doing internal tibial surgery, we have little basis to confirm any of this is true besides the word of doctor Franz Birkholtz.  Which is not to say that I wish to scrutinize the doctor here since it's got more to do with the nature of internet anonymity in the end.  I suggest cross referencing with another doctor would definitely prove useful here, but that hasn't been done yet. 

Let's not forget that this is our legs we're talking about.  No sane person here would be willing to do the surgery at the cost of losing functionality, or experiencing long term pain/complications from CLL.  I think about this a lot.  There's no reason in doing something for cosmetic purposes if there's a high risk of incurring long term issues from the whole procedure. 

The user stillyoung suggested we start a CLL wiki, which would help consolidate the information a little better.  In the end, the most important factor here are the experienced doctors.  Their word trumps any member of the forum here, to be honest... and I trust their collective insight on CLL beyond anyone else.