Stand Taller diary - The first day of the rest of my life (Betz Bone 14.01.2022)

Day 8

The first night in the flat provided by Dr Betz and his colleagues was great. I had the best night of sleep since the surgery, and the peace and quiet here alongside the better food has improved the way I feel immensely. I have very little to no pain, and I am just much more relaxed. Apparently I am the first patient using this accommodation, so I feel very lucky indeed. I've actually had the mental strength to do some work, and that says a lot.

Tomorrow we start clicking, so I can't wait to start the actual lengthening procedure!

Day 9

Today I did my first scheduled clicks, 6 on the left leg and 6 on the right leg. After understanding the technique is was fairly easy, and all click except the first on the right leg "hurt". Let me clarify, the movement to click stretches your inner thigh muscles - so when this muscles isn't stretched enough you'll feel the pain. So stretching this muscle for around 7-8 minutes resolved the issue. Total time with the stretching and clicks was 20 minutes. The plan is to do another 7-8 clicks later today.

Yesterday we started reducing my pain medication, and probably too much. Last night I had a little bit of pain and muscle aches, enough to disrupt my sleep. We have now changed the dosage, so sleeping should be without any discomforts.

Things in general are getting easier and easier for every that passes by, I just hope things stay like this in the future.

延长11厘米，你真的疯了，你以后除了走路什么都做不了，你现在还有时间去改变，比如做5厘米

Day 29

Haven't written anything here in a while because I've been so busy getting back to normal life with work and all. After two weeks in Freiburg I travelled back home, and have now been home for a little more than two weeks. The first day home was quite hard with a lot pain probably because the travel home was long and tiresome. After settling down home things have been much better and I've found a very good rutine for clicking. I do 15 clicks a day with seems to be a nice balance with stretching and over all comfort. I did to 20 clicks a day for a few days but I had more pain (growing pains) and clicking was also a bit harder. So 15 clicks seem to be a nice balance, and the plan is to do 15 clicks throughout the lengthening process. According to te initial distraction and the amount now lengthened I am at around 167cm now! I both feel and look taller, it is such an insane feeling - and I still have around 9cm to go! WOW!

Pain levels are different from day to day, some days are good and others are harder. But there is correlation between the amount of activity and pain, the more active I am the more paint I usually have the day after. So I am trying not to overdo it, but some days it's hard to stay calm. Also driving is pain when done for longer periods and after a few hours I do become very stiff.

Over all though, things are going very well and I hope keeping up with the daily stretching (3-5 times a day), being active (walking and ergometer) and going to physio keeps things balanced throughout the lengthening period.

Stand taller

The surgery was in Freiburg, very interesting! Freiburg is the most beautiful city in Germany, in my opinion. It was also voted as the city with the highest quality of life in Germany this year. Great place to recover!

Day 67

Yet another update, and it's been over a month since I last wrote here.

As before I've been busy and tired with my normal day to day life. Before surgery I would usually work 40-70 hours a week, and now I'm barely able to manage more than 5-6 hours. So that has been hard, pretty much not having the same energy levels are before.

I've now lengthened a little more than 5 cm and now stand at 170cm tall! It is such a strange, cool and special feeling being more than 170cm tall now, and knowing that even if I stopped lengthening tomorrow my new height is permanent. When I was 165cm tall I felt like a small human being or a small man, but I do not feel like small person anymore. Sure I am not the tallest, and not tall my any means. BUT I DO NOT FEEL SMALL anymore, which is such an insane feeling. I am also only 5 days from my half way point, which i really motivating.

Pain has varied a lot, and I feel like I've had pain just about everywhere. I've had quite a bit pain in my thighs while lifting up (removing weight) and also over my knees. I also have numbness on the inside of my right chin. A few weeks ago I actually experienced a burning sensation for about five minutes there, and it is the worst pain I've ever had in my life. I experienced this three days in a row and was advised to reduce clicking to 12 clicks a day instead of 15 clicks a day. This helped a lot and I've not experienced that level of pain after that. I am still numb and have some quick pulling pain from there, but nothing too bad.

The last week basically all of the pain I had in my femurs has disappeared. And I've gained more flexibility. Two days ago I also stopped taking Nobligan (Tramadol) some strong painkillers, and have had normal withdrawal symptoms after having used them for more than two months. The symptoms are a bit difficult, but with a strong will it's doable. The doctors would recommend reducing the dosage over time, but I just hard quit. I seem to be over the worst now and my form is much better.

Except for those three days of clicking 12 clicks a day I've clicked 15 clicks a day. from 3-4 cm clicking started to get harder and harder. And at around 4,5 cm it was really hard, but after 5 cm clicking is now very easy again. I've managed clicking fine since start, and I think it is psychological issue for people. Some people spend hours clicking, and yes the first week or two, before I understood how to properly click I could spend a few hours on a leg because I needed to relax my muscles and "find" the clicks. But after those first weeks I click both legs in around 5-10 min with resting and stretching.

At 5cm taller I do have wide legs and duck ass though, but having been working on this the past week with my physiotherapist, so hopefully with streething it won't get worse and maybe even better. Crossing my fingers.

Getting to that magical half way point this Saturday will be a real milestone, and instead of counting down to the halfway point I will count down to the last day of distraction.

My only other complaint is that I have a sore bum after sitting a lot during the day, So I can wait to be more mobile with a straight back so I can stand and walk more.

Stand Taller

Well congratulations.


As someone who has been in your situation i strongly advise you to stop at 5 cm, especially if workout is an important part of your life. With 5cm you will probably still be able to do normal squats at the gym, if you go beyond 5cm you can forget that, not only can you forget doing squats at the gym but workout your lower body in general(properly).


Just to illustrate how serious i am, if i could go back in time to when i had reached 5cm i would have stopped. For your information i did 9cm and i'm miserable. Dont ruin your life like i did. I would rather go back to my original height than living like this to be completely honest.

Thanks!

Never done a squat in my life and not planning on starting now, so not worried about that.

Why do you regret going 9cm? What issues do you have?

Quote from: Stand taller on March 21, 2022, 07:51:49 PMThanks!

Never done a squat in my life and not planning on starting now, so not worried about that.

Why do you regret going 9cm? What issues do you have?

There are two main problems. The first is my sitting height, i look completely ridiculous when i sit down. Before LL i had height dysphoria, not im worried that people will notice my very strange proportions instead.

The other one is that my agility is basically completely lost. I can run, but not properly. My agility is more similar to someone 50-60 years old than to someone 20 years old.


When you loose your agility you realize that its actually a bigger part of your masculinity than your height. If you go for 11cm as you are planning, the only thing you will get is height - at the expense of proportions and agility and i can safely say that its not wroth it.

If you truly want to reach around 175cm then i recommend to stop lengthening and later in life when you have the money you can lengthen your tibias by about 3cm.

The problem guys do when they do this surgery is that they aim for a magical number. I can already tell in your last post that you are also obsessed with numbers when you mentioned that you had reached 170cm, as if it was some kind of milestone. Being 168cm vs 170 is no different at all, the guy who stopped at 168 is just more healthy since he didn't overlengthen.

I understand your issues.

My brother in law is 178cm tall and we have same sitting height. When we sit next to each other our knees are also at the same height meaning that my femur is where I am lacking length. I work in the auto industry and drive many different cars, and an issue I often encounter is that the seat cushions often are too long for me, even in mid-sized cars. This is yet another indication that I indeed have short femurs, and with 5cm longer femurs this issues is less of an issue. So for my profession longer femurs will actually make my work life better in that sense. Lastly I've tons dusins of photoshop mock-ups of my self with 12cm longer femurs and I look completely normal, and much better porportioned than I was at 165 cm or even at 170cm. My wingspan is around 175cm last I checked, so I am fine in that department too.

I do appreciate your two cents and will take into account your advice. No I am not obsessed with numbers, but setting a goal is in my opinion a part of this whole procedure. And reaching 170cm may not be a milestone for you, but for me it absolutely is - even if at the end of the day it is just a number. I want to reach 176cm, but If I have severe issues with IT-band or anything else I will stop earlier.

A few years ago Dr Betz brought on Dr Becker as a partner in the firm. Other than the initial consultation and a few visits after surgery, I have had very little interaction with Dr Betz. Dr Becker has been my main Doctor through this whole thing, and he has been excellent. He has also had close contact with my physiotherapist, so any issues I have with this procedure they have been communicating directly. I have written Dr. Becker a ton and asked all sorts of things, and gotten very good and explanatory answers.

Lastly, we are all different, and different bodies react differently to this procedure. There are tons of stories here where people lengthen 8-10cm without any issues and are almost as athletic as they were before the procedure. And yes there are similar stories like yourself as well. I do understand that workout and body fitness seems a big part of your identity and who you are. And loosing some or a lot of that for a few cm is not worth it, I totally understand that. But you have to remember that we all are different people with different bodies and are doing this for different reasons.