Starting Bilateral Tibial Surgery With Dr. Paley - Dec-02-2021

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Quote from: GodsGrace on February 18, 2022, 01:55:03 AMyes, I have been prescribed with 300mg per pill.
Thanks buddy. I hope gabapentin is helping. I haven't done LL yet but had once surges of idiopathic pain,  I started with a lower dosis of gabapentin but it was raised and after 400 mg x3  each day it finally  went away.
All my best wishes to you in  this "fight" , at least that gabapentin is really helpful to you also. What would you say about it?

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Thanks for reading my diary, zaozari. I have been taking gaba for 4 days now with the dosage levels 0-0-1, 0-0-1, 1-0-1, and 1-0-1 respectively and for the next 2 days it will be 1-1-1. I have been asked to increase it to the level of 2-2-2 gradually with every 2 days. After started taking gaba and percocet my pain level has gone down 20% so far. Maybe as you say when my gabapentin intake level increases then I may see a massive reduction in pain. Let's see. For now my sleep is still a problem. I usually hit the bed at 9.30 ish and sleep gets disturbed at 11-ish that's when the legs are heavy and that's it until morning 5 AM I unable to sleep and after that I am able to grab an hour sleep. This is my sleeping routine for the last one week. Hopefully it gets better.

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https://imgur.com/a/BmAOJw2


Sorry guys, finally, I got sometime to upload my first round of X-rays that I took on Feb-14-2022 during my emergency visit with Dr.Robbins due to heavy pain on my femurs. I am adding the imgur link here and let me know if you guys are unable to see the images.

The first image is my left tibia and the second is my right tibia and the third one is my femurs. As you can see on my femurs there is a lots of side bone callus formation that's what was causing enormous amount of pain on femurs. When that X-ray was taken it was 11th day after the femur surgery and 4th day of lengthening on femurs.

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Quote from: GodsGrace on February 22, 2022, 12:18:02 AMhttps://imgur.com/a/BmAOJw2


Sorry guys, finally, I got sometime to upload my first round of X-rays that I took on Feb-14-2022 during my emergency visit with Dr.Robbins due to heavy pain on my femurs. I am adding the imgur link here and let me know if you guys are unable to see the images.

The first image is my left tibia and the second is my right tibia and the third one is my femurs. As you can see on my femurs there is a lots of side bone callus formation that's what was causing enormous amount of pain on femurs. When that X-ray was taken it was 11th day after the femur surgery and 4th day of lengthening on femurs.

Did the doctor say anything about premature consolidation? Or were you told that amount of bone formation was normal?

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No, he didn't say that it's a premature consolidation. It's very common to have this kinda callus formation on the femurs because of the bone marrow also. I showed this to all the PTs and they have also mentioned it's a common scenario and they have seen many patients in the past with this callus formation. For some it has dissolved in few days and for some it took few weeks to months. Even Dr. Robbins mentioned that the side callus formation will dissolve over the period of time. If for any reason it didn't dissolve and consolidates then there will be an osteotomy (re-breaking the bone) that would cost me around 20k. This was mentioned to me by one of the PTs but it's one in 100 cases though. Let's see.

I will give a detailed update on my femurs in the next post where I will mention about my pain levels and how my femur situation has improved in the last few days.

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Quote from: GodsGrace on February 22, 2022, 01:08:29 AMNo, he didn't say that it's a premature consolidation. It's very common to have this kinda callus formation on the femurs because of the bone marrow also. I showed this to all the PTs and they have also mentioned it's a common scenario and they have seen many patients in the past with this callus formation. For some it has dissolved in few days and for some it took few weeks to months. Even Dr. Robbins mentioned that the side callus formation will dissolve over the period of time. If for any reason it didn't dissolve and consolidates then there will be an osteotomy (re-breaking the bone) that would cost me around 20k. This was mentioned to me by one of the PTs but it's one in 100 cases though. Let's see.

I will give a detailed update on my femurs in the next post where I will mention about my pain levels and how my femur situation has improved in the last few days.

Yeah, in my first X-rays 2 weeks after surgery, my femurs showed a heavy callus formation that seemed to 'spill' outside of the bone separation. In the next X-rays 2 weeks later, the spilled heavy callus formation mostly dissolved and it was back to normal.

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My case was similar. My 1s femur xray showed bone marrows on both. On the 2nd xray, they look "lighter". This mean they are being dissolved over time.

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Thanks HeightJourney2021 and motoboarder. I hope that will be the case for my femurs as well. I have my next follow up appointment with Dr. Robbins on Feb-28th (in 6 days) and I will have my X-rays on that day. I can definitely say the pain on my right femurs (because of that callus formation) is reduced 80% and I only feel the pain when the right leg is in improper position and it never bothers me during PT with any stretches. But my left is still painful I would say 70% pain is still there and I can see a big bump on my left where the callus formation is there. That really limits my movement and my PT sessions. Any movements that I make it pains a lot. Especially when the PT does the thomas stretch and they ask me to lay down on my belly oh my god it hurts like hell. Hopefully it gets better with time as the time goes on. Fingers crossed.

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Feb-22-2022 - Tibia+36 - Femur+19

Last Wednesday (Feb-16-2022) I met Dr. Giufridda and I was prescribed with percocet (it's also a combination of acetominophen and oxycodone) and after started taking that along with gabapentin the overall pain level reduced by 70% and I was really happy with that. However, my sleep was still a problem. During my emergency appointment with Dr. Robbins on Feb-14-2022 he suggested me to use Thermx machine instead of Polar care ice pack machine. He said if you are interested send me an email I will introduce you to a person and you can follow up with him. As he advised I sent him an email and he introduced me to a person by name Joe. The Thermx machine costs around $5500 but you can rent the machine from this guy. He charges about 750$ a month for that machine. I bargained him a bit and said I will pay you $1500 for 2.5 months and he said ok. So I started using the machine from Feb-17-2022 and I will use it until April 30th or until my lengthening is done.

Unlike the Polar care machine (where you need to fill the ice cubes manually every time the ice cubes melt) the Thermx machine produces cool and heat electronically and it's a game changer for me. Now I do not need to wake up my wife during the middle of the night for refilling the ice cubes. There is a timer with predefined cool or heat level you can set and it runs based on that. It's really amazing. Dr. Robbins told me that it's usually used by sports persons and it's very helpful. But it changed my sleep quality. Ever since I started using it (since last Thursday Feb-17-2022)I have been averaging about 8 to 9 hours of quality sleep every single day. If anyone has sleep issues I would highly recommend this product to try it out. Also I am using the heat for about 20 to 30 mins before I start my workouts. I workout couple of times (most of the days along with the regular PT session) a day and it really helps loosens up the muscles before my workout. Overall it's a very good investment I made for my current situation.


Lengthening statistics so far,

Tibia: 19.25 mm
Femur: 10.25 mm
Total: 29.5 mm

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The Thermx machine is truly a great option. Would you say the 8-9h of sleep is uninterrupted at all, or do you still wake up couple times? For me I slept 6-7h at night, waking up couple times because of the discomfort of the dorsiflexion boots or when I need to change postures. I could only sleep on the sides for less than 10min because of the pressure created on the pin sites.