Quote from: motoboarder on February 23, 2022, 01:10:43 AMThe 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.
Definitely it is not uninterrupted. I still wake up like 4 or 5 times but I immediately pass out. I put an alarm for every 4 hours to take my percocet so I definitely wake up for that. The max minutes configuration in thermx is 40 mins so after that it turns off sometimes I lose sleep when it turns off so I wake and turn it back on and immediately go back to sleep. Sometimes even if it turns off I won't wakeup for few hours and all of a sudden I get up and see the machine is off and turn it back on and go back to sleep. Sometimes I wake up to pee and I pee on the pee bottle and go back to sleep. I hope you get the point here. But even if I wake up these many times I am able to go back to my deep sleep within few minutes.
As far as the sleeping posture is concerned I just keep 2 thin pillows under my knees. Only 1/4th of the pillow (one of the corners of the pillow) not the entire pillow and I always maintain only one sleeping posture that is face upward (laying on my back). Sometimes I bend my knees on the pillows but most of the times I try to keep it straight. I tried twice sleeping on my side before the thermx machine but it was painful as you said but after the thermx there is no need for that for me at least. Because of the very long pads that covers your entire femurs on both legs it is very hard to turn on the side so automatically you will only be on one sleeping posture. This is my experience so far and honestly it is great.
Starting Bilateral Tibial Surgery With Dr. Paley - Dec-02-2021
Feb-28-2022 - Tibia+42 - Femur+25
Payday today. I had my 2 weeks follow-up with Dr. Robbins and everything went well. Dr. Robbins checked my ROM and he said everything looks good so far. My left ankle is little tight when compared to my right and he noticed that too and he asked me to work on it.
My X-rays can be seen using the following link. First 3 images belong to tibia and the next 3 belong to femurs.
https://imgur.com/a/4gDcPpW
Otherwise, everyday is pretty much the same in terms of activities. The pain level is averaging from 2 to 4 mostly. Some days the pain level is little high but maximum is 5 (moderate level). As soon as I take the pain meds it is coming down to 2 or 3. As some LL veterans say it is more of a mental game as you need to repeat the same thing over and over again for 2-3 months once your surgical pain is gone. Sometimes you will feel like it is really checking your patience and for few moments you will lose your mind. At least it happened to me twice. Whenever that happens I will think about my past and my bad experiences that I have experienced for being short and why I badly wanted this procedure that will make me calm. Anyways enough of ranting and trying to keep my cool. Peace.
Lengthening statistics so far,
Tibia: 21.25 mm
Femur: 13.75 mm
Total: 35 mm
Quote from: GodsGrace on February 18, 2022, 02:34:54 AM
Thanks motoboarder for answering. Hey Will955, "IAmReady" is the diary I was so impressed with (it's an interesting read) and he split the QL into 2 parts, like first tibia surgery and finished his complete tibial lengthening then after a week of his tibial lengthening is done he started with his Femur surgery because he doesn't want to deal with pain from all 4 segments of his legs and also he wanted to achieve a little more than 10 cms. I initially was planning to do the same but it took him around 7 months (need to recollect my notes) just to finish the lengthening part on both segments (tibias and femurs). That's a lot of time for me and I don't have that much time and I am not working right now. I quit my job for 5 months for now. Also the other reason I dropped that plan was when I was speaking with Dr. Robbins he mentioned that your request can be accommodated but the amount of time you will be on blood thinners, pain killers and other tablets will be doubled which is not good for your liver considering your age since I am in my late 30s. So I had to drop that plan and stick with QL with 2-3 weeks apart.
My base goal is 10 cms however I would be happy if I can achieve 11.5 cms. I need to check with the doctors to see if they let me do that as there are so many factors involved in it. Time will tell.
That makes sense. Not being exposed to blood thinners and pain killers for too long.
Did you ever speak to your doctor about going the full 11.5cm? Or has your planned changed since?
You noticing your new height yet? Being 3.5cm taller already. Incredible.
Keep up the good attitude, bro.
Quote from: Will955 on March 01, 2022, 10:01:05 AMThat makes sense. Not being exposed to blood thinners and pain killers for too long.
Did you ever speak to your doctor about going the full 11.5cm? Or has your planned changed since?
You noticing your new height yet? Being 3.5cm taller already. Incredible.
Keep up the good attitude, bro.
My plan hasn't changed yet. Even during yesterday's visit Dr.Robbins was asking, "again what's your goal?" I said minimum 10 cms (T - 4 + F - 6) and if my body can support I would like to push it to 11.5 cms (T- 5 + F - 6.5). He replied, wow that's a lot but it is still in the safer limits so let's see how your body reacts at the end and based on that we will take it forward.
Yes, I am already feeling the height difference and it's really incredible indeed. I stood with the help of the walker and asked my wife to come and stand in front of me (eye to eye). She has to lift her head up to see my eyes and I was able to see her top of the head below my eye levels. Basically we both are equal heights and my wife sometimes in the morning looks taller than me. She was stunned to see the difference. It is life changing and I can't explain in words the feeling I had at that moment. But it is only 20% complete so far so it is too early to celebrate but man the 3.5 cms height difference it was very amazing.
Thanks for your kind words, bro.
That's amazing, my man.
Agreed on the mental game once surgical pain goes away.
As soon as you start feeling nerve pain (if you do), which tends to be preceded by numbness in the shins, go on gabapentin ASAP. That is worse than surgical pain IMO, as the pain meds don't affect it.
Thanks my friend.
I am already on gabapentin with dosage level of 2-2-2 per day. I started taking gaba from Feb 14 that's when I had very crazy pain. Once I started taking gaba and percocet all the pain has been pretty much gone and my current pain level ranges from 2 to 3 that's mainly from the lengthening and stretching.
I really want to remind you of the potential danger of taking too much Percocet. Please be aware of it and check out https://rrtampa.com/opioids/percocet/
Thanks icrs. Yes, I am aware of the side effects and when I was prescribed and started taking the percocet I read about it. Now in the last one week instead of taking 1 in every 4 hours I am gradually trying to reduce the intake and now I am taking 1 tablet in every 6 hours. Whenever I feel more pain only then I am taking 1 tablet in 4 hours but otherwise I am maintaining 1 in every 6 hours. So instead of 6 tablets a day now I am taking 4 tablets a day and I am slowly trying to go to 3 tablets a day meaning 1 tablet for every 8 hours. That's little tough at this point but I am going to try to do that.
Hi GodsGrace,
How is getting about and doing tasks? Do you find it difficult to move around and transfer/do chores/etc.?
How are you keeping yourself entertained?
Hope you are doing well and best of luck!
Quote from: randomperson on March 02, 2022, 01:23:47 PMHi GodsGrace,
How is getting about and doing tasks? Do you find it difficult to move around and transfer/do chores/etc.?
How are you keeping yourself entertained?
Hope you are doing well and best of luck!
Thanks for checking my diary, randomperson.
I believe I am managing fine with moving and doing chores. From my bed I will transfer to wheelchair and using the wheelchair I will move around my home wherever I want. I will move to the bathroom and do my brushing and cleaning up my urine bottle ( bought a 2000 ml capacity one from amazon, this one thing my wife really hates to touch it, LOL) and if I want to po*p I will transfer directly from my wheelchair to the toilet commode and once I am done I will transfer back to my wheelchair. Regarding the showering, my 2 bathrooms have big bath tubs (like a jaccuzi and it is very tall in height). First I bought the transfer bench but for some reason since the bath tubs are really tall even if I adjust the height of the transfer bench it wasn't fitting quite well since the bottom part of the bench was always touching the top of the bath tub. So I returned that and bought simply the bath stool. So from my wheelchair I will first transfer to the bath tub since the bath tub edges are wide enough to accommodate my bu*t (honestly you can sit there for hours and sometimes that's what I do to attend my office calls when my kid is watching the TV, LOL) and from there I will transfer to the bath stool. Once I am done with bathing I will do the same in reverse.
As far as the entertainment is concerned, I don't know this is how my day goes. I am not currently working. Took a 5 months break in fact I left my current job. I will wake up in the morning, do brushing, have my breakfast, get ready for PT, the wheelchair van service driver comes and picks me up and easily 3-4 hours will be gone in the PT process. By the time I come back home it will be lunch time and after my lunch I take a nap for almost 1-1.5 hours and then wakeup around 4 PM. Then I will work with my daughter for her homework oh man it's a torture and she simple wastes a lot of time I know she is just 6 so it's very difficult to keep her focused. But I will do my workouts and stretches while I am helping her with her homework. I have setup a mini parallel bar right next to my bed, the desk bike, and few dumbbells. I pretty much do my weight trainings every alternate days. Then after that I will take the shower and if time permits I will play with my daughter for a while then have my dinner and get back to the bed. In between all these activities I spend few mins on the lengthening part. Once I am on the bed depends on my mood I will watch either a movie or a series or crypto videos.
I have also bought an electric wheelchair and I am planning to use that from this weekend onwards. Once I start using it then I plan on going out everyday in the evening with my daughter while she does the biking. If not on the weekdays at least on the weekends. Weekends are the worst for me right now since I haven't started to going out not even in my apartment community. At least on the weekdays you go out for the PT so 3-4 hours flies by quickly.
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