Hey guys,
It's been a while since an update - mainly because life is slowly moving on and every day the memory of the surgery fades more and more. I started this journey excited, scared and hopeful. My height neurosis had developed from early high school and had only intensified into adulthood. Being 5'4" is a rough height for a man and people will often make sure that you aware of that. I would think about my height every day and it would be the first thing on my mind in every face to face interaction with people. It became so ingrained in my subconscious to the point where I couldn't escape my own thoughts regarding my height, or lack thereof. Despite having a beautiful girlfriend and multiple past relationships, despite building my own business and progressing well in my corporate career at an early age, despite having lots of friends and despite enjoying life by travelling and experiencing as much as the world has to offer, I could never shake the feeling that no matter what I did or how successful I became, I would always be the 'short guy' and have that defining characteristic follow me wherever I went. Not all short men feel like this though, I know 3 men at my previous height who genuinely seem like they don't have an issue with their height at all and would never consider something as drastic as this. Short height is not a barrier to living a happy and successful life so I made sure that I lived life to the fullest in everything that I did despite my nagging height neurosis.
I am the type of person that if there is a solution to something that is deeply important to me, I just have to explore it, no matter how drastic that solution might be. When I first discovered internal LL in 2018, my first thought was "These people are insane, I could never break my legs for a few inches", but then as I learned more and more about the procedure, I began to feel the opposite way and began to intensely research and decided to get this done one day. That process took about 6 months from first discovering LL. I would go back and forth between wanting the surgery then not wanting it and then back again. I finally decided to commit that one day I would get the surgery and nothing would stop me from achieving that goal. Not a global pandemic with a narrow window to get a travel exemption to leave the country, not the recall of Stryde 1 month before I was scheduled in Greece, not being locked up in a hotel room with no fresh air for 2 weeks with 2 broken legs. I decided that nothing would stop me from achieving my goal. I was hellbent on achieving it. The greatest thing that this process has taught me as cheesy as it sounds is that no matter how difficult the changing circumstances are that will attempt to derail you from achieving your goal, if it is extremely important to you and you dedicate yourself completely to that goal, you will achieve it.
Now 6.5 months later, I can honestly say this has been one of the best decisions of my life. I no longer hate the way I feel around other people and I no longer think about how short I am. In fact, I bought a stadiometer to measure my final height and to my surprise I measure 172cm out of bed and stay around 171.5-171 throughout the day. Either I measured my initial height wrong or Betz made a bigger gap in the osteotomy than 0.5mm. Either way I am thrilled at basically being 5'8" now lol. I had a relatively smooth process apart from needing an ITB release (which was an insanely quick recovery) and I do know that my thoughts on if this is worth it would be affected if I had run into severe complications. This is why it is so important to choose a safe method and doctor. I may not agree with Dr. Betz not performing an ITB release but aside from that he is as a good of an LL surgeon as there is in the world especially from a technical standpoint.
Do I recommend this surgery? I recommend it to people who have genuine height neurosis and have other areas of their life maxed out. I don't mean some slight dissatisfaction with your height (as most guys below average have anyway) but a genuine neurosis that cannot be cured with therapy (which it can't despite what they tell you). If that sounds like you then this surgery can definitely change your life for the better. It has changed mine. I still haven't seen my friends due to lockdown (will in a few weeks) and am a bit worried about their reactions to the height increase but at the end of the day I did this for me and I would rather receive comments on looking taller the first couple of times I see them than living the rest of my life with height neurosis. This surgery is risky but if you mitigate risk by going to a good surgeon and dong an internal method and keeping your goal realistic, it can absolutely be worth it.
My gait is now at about 90-95% and is undetectable to the casual observer. I am still a few months off running as even though my consolidation is great, I want to take it easy in the athletic recovery department. One day I hope to get back to competitive sports although a I acknowledge this will never be at the same level. But I am ok with that.
I wanted to thank you guys for providing info and good discussion in the lead up to my prep for this surgery. The forum isn't what it once was with some of these ridiculous trolls and threads but there are some good people here with genuine intent to learn about this and get it done in the future. I hope the community continues to improve and has found value and benefit in my experience. This will be one of my last posts before I leave for good. As always feel free to ask any questions! Thanks guys, wishing you all the best with your future LL journeys.
RB