Hey guys!!
I am currently doing LL in the form of LON femurs with Dr. Halil Buldu in Istanbul, Turkey. My surgery was july 3rd, and i will be reaching approximately 3cm on the 10th of august. My starting height was 177-8 in the morning and could drop to 177-76. My initial goal was an 8cm increase on my femurs, but after reading various threads on this forum i am questioning the safety behind this. I guess my question is, how much safer would for example 6.5/7cm be compared to 8cm?
As for now i feel i am in great shape, i have full knee extension, about 100 degrees flexion (still working on that). I do heavy upper body workouts almost every day to keep my upper body muscle mass and it also helps my mental state a lot. I decided to stay in Istanbul during lengthening so i could receive daily physical therapy. I have little to no day to day pain. I am still working on being able to walk unassisted but my balance isn't the best at the moment.
Additionally, if you have any questions about my surgery, just fire away. Hope you guys have a great weekend! 
Question regardig amount of femur lengthening
6-7 cm is literally the best. 8 has always been too risky for me. Also, are you turkish? Can I pm you?
I'm also considering Mr. Buldu
Best Regards
edit Does it hurt? Is it tolerable ? Would you recommend Halil Buldu? How much exactly did you pay?
You may want to answer the first 2 questions when you reach 5cm and more.
Nah man i'm not from Turkey, i'm from Sweden.
Regarding your question about pain: the first week is pretty bad painwise but you get taken really good care of down here. It is also very manageable with the painkillers you get, when leaving the hospital you get tramadol, oral voltarol, geralgine- k (paracetamol/caffeine/codeine) that really helps. I stopped pretty early with the NSAIDs as they can be very bad for bone healing. The pain is very tolerable if you consider your pain tolerance to be normal. As for your question if i would recommend Dr. Halil, i absolutely would. I traveled down here on my own and i am staying in an apartment all alone. Halil has been incredibly helpful with helping me with day to day stuff, i can contact his assistant whenever i want and she does everything for me, she is a an absolute saint. The physical therapist is also very skilled. Surgery price was 17000 USD.
In my opinion, the pain was at its absolute peak at the start of this journey, and now it is not bad at all. I pretty much never take painkillers and i only get "nagging" pains every once in a while. If you'd like, you can send me a pm and i can give you my whatsapp or something.
Thanks for the reply.
I'll pray for you bro, I hope you return your daily life quickly. Are there any problems about bone alignment? Did doctor say anything? Also, it'd be excellent if we could see your xrays since i'm really considering Buldu and most of his patients don't post any pictures for privacy reasons which is ABSOLUTELY acceptable. If you don't want to post them, it's totally fine. I understand you.
Best Regards
Thanks so much for the kind words man, i am sure i will be okay. I am being taken really good care of down here. Dr. Halil even told me "since you will be here alone, me and my assistant will act as your family". He really is a good guy who cares about his patients.
As for the x-rays, i have only gotten one xray at approximately 1.5cm lengthening. I don't have them on my phone but i might inquire about them. I got to see them after the xray was finished and the radiologist and Halil said they looked perfectly fine.
As you might have noticed, I am really reluctant about turning this into a diary, not only due to privacy reasons, but I have also witnessed how toxic and unpleasant people are on this forum and I am at a stage where I really do not need a barrage of negative comments.
As for any people reading this, if you legitimately have questions for me, you can shoot me a pm and we can talk through whatsapp where i will not be as reluctant as i am on here. Also, for any questions that are not very personal, feel free to ask here.
Once you get near the limits, every cm reduced makes a world of difference. This is for Tibias and not Femurs, but the difference between 6cm Tibias and 7cm Tibias is like night and day in terms of recovery and post op effects. It can go from a 7 month recovery to a years long recovery. Surely you can extrapolate that logic to the near upper limit for Femurs.
Now you have to decide if you'll be 100% fine with getting just 6 or 7cm versus the 8cm. Many people regret not going all the way.
I will be operated by halil BUldu in a month, I think 7.5 cm will be safe.
Yes you are very right. It is a hard decision to make. Do i risk it for the extra cm or 2 or do i go the safer route. However, this is something i have always wondered: Is it "easier" for my body to recover from 8cm since my legs are already relatively long (femurs are 50cm) than a person who has much shorter femurs?
Also, i believe i must take into account that there will be a discrepancy between how much i have lengthened and my actual height increase.
I am considering heavily stopping at 7cm maybe 7.5 to account for the discrepancy. What do you think about this?
From what i have gathered, with external LON there will always be a height loss after removing the frames.
I wish you the best of luck, drxboom. If you are worried about the surgery, you should not be. I was dreading the surgery a lot a couple weeks before i did it, but it is nowhere near as scary as it is made out to be. I am sure you will be 100% fine, Halil and his assistants will take great care of you. Remember to bring sandals or flip flops, wearing shoes turned out to be bad for the hotel transfer xD.
Thank you. If I have a question, can I send pm you?
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