Quote from: uponly on April 19, 2023, 12:59:32 AM
This question comes up SO much it's almost troll bait to answer, but here you go, in the unrealistic hope that it will stop:
You're going to lose one year at least from being fully functional in normal ability to walk, let alone perform mighty athletic feats. If you're lucky, you get your hardware out at the year mark and have to wait another 3 months to fully recover from that. So just in terms of time loss, you're behind by that much - at the minimum.
In terms what you actually lose during distraction and consolidation:
YOUR LEG FUNCTION. I'm 5 cm in with arguably the world's best Dr., and at least 40% of my ROM and flexibility are gone. My glutes are saggy and look like pancakes. Forget upper body lifting - I'm exhausted from taking more than 30 steps with my walker. My femoral nerves are literally on fire. All I care about is finishing so I can get out of the damn wheelchair and graduate to crutches, where I'll be for a month or so best case.
And I'm considered a great case. I'm making
TONS of bone, sleep 10+ hours a day, stretch and do PT for 2 hours a day and still have a lot of ROM - before the surgery, I could do the splits and was very athletic, competing in one sport.
I have zero hope of regaining 100% of my former athletic ability. There's not a single documented case of this happening because it won't. You break your legs, stretch your muscles, nerves and ligaments for 4 months, are wheelchair bound with limited mobility, and have to work incredibly hard just to regain your gait and ROM, let alone athletics.
So, the answer is
NO. People keep asking, and it's not going to change. There's a trade-off. It's called
HEIGHT. You either make the trade or don't, but you can't have your cake and eat it too in this case due to time, kinesiology, body mechanics and simple biology.
What you can do is get good at another sport, hobby, etc. And if you work really hard, you'll get 80% of your athletic ability or so back, per my PT - who has been an orthopedics PT for close to 3 decades and all he does is rehab broken legs. Before you can do that, though, you have to work two years or so JUST to get close to your original flexibility back, and given your new height, you'll have to adjust how you lift, jump, etc.
One or the other, height increase or keep your status quo. That's it.
Quote from: Yau on April 19, 2023, 01:25:32 AM
This teenager recovered well.
I don't think you guys understood my question. My question was whether if there is any scientific data on recovery after lengthening done by a doctor or a group of doctors, not how well someone can recover.