Rozbruch- Internal Femurs with Stryde

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Hey Tiggy, how's it going? How are you managing the numbness?

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Quote from: TheAlchemist on June 20, 2019, 12:04:34 PMHey Tiggy, how's it going? How are you managing the numbness?

Hey Alchemist,

Thanks for checking in. Numbness is the same but my symptoms have improved. He doubled my gabapentin dose and I'm lengthening 2 times on the right leg and 3 times on the left. I noticed less burning now and less of the pins and needles sensation, though both are still there. Point is that now they are much more manageable. The annoying part is that the pace is slow which means if I keep lengthening only twice on the right leg, it will double the lengthening time for me. I do hope that when I see him next week that he will allow me to increase the pace on the right leg. We will see what he decides.

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Hi tiggy

sorry to hear that you have problems that cause you to slow the pace.  As I mentioned above, most of problems are due to lengthening/extending.  I think your case is likely the same, since you do feel better after slowing down the pace.  It is a sort of tug of war between contraction forces by your tissues (muscles, tendons, and nerves) and extension forces by lengthening and physical therapy. It is a losing game in the end but everyone is different so it is the matter of when it happens to people.  Unfortunately, it seems to happen too early for you.  You just have to go through it by doing enough PT and adjusting lengthening rate.  I do want to tell you that nerves or muscles seem to adjust themselves at some point, meaning that they may react at the beginning but adjust themselves a little bit to face their new environments.  For example, I had a burning sensation in my right leg around knee at the beginning which made me so hard to stretch the knee.  Later on (I don't remember exactly when, perhaps around 5-6 weeks lengthening), my right leg got better but left leg started to feel the same burning feeling during stretching.  Anyhow, I just managed to finish all my journey.  You can do it too!

Good luck!

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Quote from: Ghostfish on June 21, 2019, 01:14:42 AMHi tiggy

sorry to hear that you have problems that cause you to slow the pace.  As I mentioned above, most of problems are due to lengthening/extending.  I think your case is likely the same, since you do feel better after slowing down the pace.  It is a sort of tug of war between contraction forces by your tissues (muscles, tendons, and nerves) and extension forces by lengthening and physical therapy. It is a losing game in the end but everyone is different so it is the matter of when it happens to people.  Unfortunately, it seems to happen too early for you.  You just have to go through it by doing enough PT and adjusting lengthening rate.  I do want to tell you that nerves or muscles seem to adjust themselves at some point, meaning that they may react at the beginning but adjust themselves a little bit to face their new environments.  For example, I had a burning sensation in my right leg around knee at the beginning which made me so hard to stretch the knee.  Later on (I don't remember exactly when, perhaps around 5-6 weeks lengthening), my right leg got better but left leg started to feel the same burning feeling during stretching.  Anyhow, I just managed to finish all my journey.  You can do it too!

Good luck!

Thanks for your comment Ghostfish,
This LL journey is quite something I must say! I am more optimistic now that I have these symptoms at least a little more under control. I realize I am only at around 3 cm, meaning I'm not even half way done so  tightness is going to get intense the more I lengthen, though I guess the benefit of going slow for now is that tightness should be more manageable. But again I may need to speed things up in the future, thus it's  hard to predict how things will go with this surgery. But at least for now the process is a little easier since I no longer feel like someone is inserting knives into my tibias. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to reach that final goal irrespective of the lengthening pace. Im hopeful that I can do this successfully just like you and others on here. Let's see!! Thank you for your words of encouragement.

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Hey Tiggy,

How's everything going? Would be great to hear about your progress.

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Hey man,

I haven't updated the forum because everything is pretty much the same. I'm still on 200 mg gabapentin 3 times a day. My symptoms have improved in terms of burning and the pins and needles sensation. Before I couldn't even put my full weight on my right leg but now I can do so. But again all those symptoms are still there, numbness is there though burning is much less. These days I try avoiding contact with fabric because it's very painful. The left leg is doing well but now I'm also having numbness in my left shins. However that numbness is not permanent and disappears once I shake off the leg. I hope it stays that way instead of becoming permanent, then again I'm already used to the process given the headache wth my right leg, so come what may.

When my right leg symptoms improved I began to lengthen my right leg 3 times a day instead of alternating between 2 times one day and 3 times the next. However when I saw dr R this week he told me to continue alternating between 2 and 3 times on the right leg because the callus formation is slower than it is in the left leg. I'm upset about the slow callus growth on the right leg because it prevents me from lengthening faster. My plan is to put more weight on my right leg until I see him again in 3 weeks. Hopefully there will be more progress in few weeks. Dr R didn't raise alarms about the slow callus formation given I'm only about 7 weeks post op but I am personally concerned and quite irritated.

Anyway that's about it as far as updates are concerned. In terms of mm lengthened, I'm at around 35mm on the right and almost 38 on the left. I can't wait to hit 50mm. By my calculations, I should be at around 50mm next time I see him. From there on I will have 30mm left and mentally that should be an easier target to overcome. Anyway I won't jump ahead, let's see what happens. Thanks for your post!

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Hi tiggy

I am glad that things are a little getting better.  As I told you, I also had that sort of sensations and hated touching fabric on the bed.  They will be gone 1-2 months after you stop lengthening.
Regarding callus, as you know, you have to walk and stand as much as possible in order to stimulate bone growth.  And Stretch and stretch!
Take care!!

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Quote from: Ghostfish on June 30, 2019, 07:08:51 AMHi tiggy

I am glad that things are a little getting better.  As I told you, I also had that sort of sensations and hated touching fabric on the bed.  They will be gone 1-2 months after you stop lengthening.
Regarding callus, as you know, you have to walk and stand as much as possible in order to stimulate bone growth.  And Stretch and stretch!
Take care!!


Yea truthfullly I haven't been doing enough walking lately. I did more in the beginning but then after the right leg troubles appeared I slowed my pace. Sometimes even now I'd be reading a book for example and time would pass by and I'd forget that I need to get up and walk. Starting today though I'm going to walk with most weight on the right leg until legs can't take it anymore! The curious thing is that even with less walking in the past few weeks, the callus formation is doing well on the left leg, it's the right that's lagging behind. So this makes me think that perhaps the walking amount itself wasn't an issue, it was mainly that I didn't put enough weight on the right leg when doing so. But either way I'm going to increase both.

It's interesting you brought up stretching. Does more stretching promote callus formation? I haven't heard of this before.

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Thanks Tiggy. Glad to hear that the numbness and burning is improving. I'm amazed at your progress and coming up to 5 cm soon. That's a huge milestone.

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Quote from: tiggy on June 30, 2019, 02:03:45 PMIt's interesting you brought up stretching. Does more stretching promote callus formation? I haven't heard of this before.
No, I didn't say stretching for callus formation   I said that because stretch will help your burning or numbness. 
Regarding discrepancy in bone growth, it is probably due to the way you walk or stand since you put more weight on the left leg.  In any case, don't worry.  As long as there is a decent amount of callus formation, after stopping lengthening, bones grow much better!

Take care!