Quote from: LLSouthAmerica on July 18, 2017, 04:10:14 PMHi Unicorn! Have you tried bone stimulators such as exogen? I read somewhere that some of Paley's patients were doing it.
I leave an article about them: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762251/
I don't know whether they will have a definite impact on your case, but I doubt it would hurt to try.
Thanks for this. I'll definitely take a look. Other people have tried HGH (I'm still waiting to see if their new xrays improve) and ESWT (some marked improvement on one LLer's leg).
I'm quite lucky to be in a group with other non-union LL patients who have gaps ranging from 1cm to 7cm, and dating back to 1-3 years. We share knowledge and serve as each other's guinea pigs - call it economies of scale 
. Hopefully, all of us will emerge winners one day.
I can say one thing - none of us are made of money - and all of us are paying the price of having our lives placed on hold, friends forgetting us and the opportunity cost of gainful employment. Will we be able to dig ourselves out of this money pit?
UNICORN - Dr. Guichet Internal Femurs 8cm - Summer 2016
Quote from: cobalt on July 18, 2017, 07:38:53 PMBTW you look very young in your photos. Not your real age at all, that is something you should be happy about. I have no doubt you will resume your old life after all this is over with one day. You are intelligent, attractive, and now even taller. I see no reasons as to why you cannot get married or have kids. I know ladies who had children at 40, 42. Or even adoption is possible. Either way you can fulfill all these things. So never limit yourself in this thinking.
Thanks Cobalt!!! I suffer from hypermobility, so I've a different make of collagen, apparently. Neither my grandma, my mum and myself age much - I know weird. We can all be a showcase trio on cirque du soleil for our hyper flexibility.
Love, marriage and kids have been pushed to the back burner. For all the things I had going on in my life, I needed cosmetic leg lengthening like a hole in the head. It's definitely an error of epic proportions of the naive and foolhardy.
you are 166 or 168 now ?
You made only femurs ?
Quote from: jerkey on July 19, 2017, 01:03:32 AMHi Unicorn,
Just read through your diary, I couldn't believe what I was reading tbh.
I'm no expert but it is mostly the pediatric orthopedic surgeons who do deformity corrections (lengthen, shorten, rotate bones) as children usually present with these conditions. I believe some of them also see adults to deal with these issues. For example, Dr. Paley and Dr. Donghoon are trained as pediatric orthopedic surgeons. The adult orthopedic surgeons trained in trauma, lower limb complex recon (guys that also do hip/knee replacements), and oncology also deal with deformities usually arising from trauma (surgery, accidents where bone not salvageable) but I believe their approach is to heal the bone first by shortening b/c you can still walk with a shortened leg. At this point, I don't know what your goals are but from my experience with tibia lengthening, when I asked the surgeon they told me it takes approximately 1 month/1 cm of lengthening tibia to union/heal. With so little callus and a 10cm gap with no reverse/shortening mechanism with the G-nail, it will take many months for consolidation while having an unstable base. I can only imagine the psychological/economical difficulties of healing that long.
It seems that you are a highly qualified professional with a harvard education. And too young to be throwing that away. If you cut your losses and if your ortho suggests closing the bone gap, it may take around 3 months for the femur to consolidate if you take the estimate for a new fracutre, and you would be walking pretty normally before that with equal leg lengths as you have maintained your muscle mass through regular exercise. You will have lost time, height, and money but none more going forward. The risk of more accidental clicks, infections, surgeries, procedures, and pulmonary embolism damaging your health and adding more time is frankly scary. Reducing to 5cm like others suggested also seems like an excellent option if this is possible, but I don't know how you can do this reliably in surgery; leaving a bone gap with a nonunion may be taking chances on its own. If height continues to be an issue, maybe you can consider surgery again way out in the future but with a smaller limit (probably 5cm max) on your femurs, and doing bone marrow right from the start. Doing more of this right now seems really difficult. And please please don't think of this as something you have to "beat" as you can't tell your body to grow more bone...
Another thing is the medication. When I was lengthening, I took tramadol on a regular basis. Only when I stopped taking them after lengthening that I realized, as an opioid, it was allowing me to feel almost zero anxiety about the passing time. When I came off I sort of woke up to the fact that all this time passed by in my life. Also, I was addicted to sleeping pills (benzodiazepines and imovane) when I was in my early 20's. I tried multiple times to quit, but only after ~2 years and going cold turkey for 2 weeks (when I didn't sleep at all) was I able to come off of them. Because the benzos also dampen anxiety, and when they come off the anxiety is worse, I made the mistake of lashing out and losing some of my friends. I am frankly scared of sleeping pills to this day for this reason.
Lastly, and this is my personal opinion, if having your own kids is what you want, you can plan to freeze your eggs and this will take some time pressure off and maybe change your decision about ongoing leg lengthening. Again, my personal opinion/observation, nowadays as men's appearance is mattering more and more and his financial abilities a bit less, if you go back to your good job and hire a personal trainer to get you a killer body I think that marriage is certainly not impossible (although I don't know your standards). If you are worried about your age, if you will consider guys who had prior marriage I think you will find yourself with options, especially nowadays when divorce is unfortunately very common.
I am wishing the best for you and hope to hear good news posted on your diary soon. Please remember to eat well (sufficient calories + lots of protein + calcium). Please consider telling someone, a family member; they will be angry at first, but in the end only family really can love you unconditionally and truly care. Please keep your optimistic outlook. Like old Mike Tyson said, after hundreds of millions of dollars, loss of his daughter, betrayals, etc etc, "As long as you are alive, you have a chance".
All the best and wishing you health.
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to write Jerkey.
I'll definitely relay what I hear about possible solutions as it might be helpful one day to someone else in the same predicament. I promise you, if I had to collapse the gap to lose all my lengthening, I would NEVER undergo lengthening again! Hello stripper heels...!
I fortunately had my eggs frozen 
So yes, one day when it's financially viable for me, I'll definitely pursue that. But right now when I'm barely able to stand, walk without tiring so quickly and in constant panic about refracturing myself, love is sadly quite far from my mind 
It's the price I pay for being so reckless.
I've told my parents that I'm undergoing limb lengthening and even showed them how to do it. They actually helped me hold my leg in a 180 degrees recently to find my click. My new story is while correcting my bent femur surgically, my left leg was fractured and hence, I ended up with a leg length discrepancy. Hence, now I've to go through this 'out-of-this-world' procedure called cosmetic leg lengthening where I've to rachet my leg 3x per day.
My parents' reaction were, "Technology! Driveless cars, printable skin and now, we've a tall daughter, do you think you can find a man now?"
So much for all the emotional anguish I suffered while hiding this procedure from them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quote from: theophilo on July 20, 2017, 12:27:21 PMyou are 166 or 168 now ?
You made only femurs ?
Something like that. I've not bothered to track my height since the runaway clicking to 10cm came as an absolute shock. I'll post some before lengthening and post lengthening femur photos. That should be quite interesting to see proportion-wise.
And only femurs, internal nail. I'd never attempt anything like this again!
Quote from: Unicorn888 on July 20, 2017, 12:59:17 PMSomething like that. I've not bothered to track my height since the runaway clicking to 10cm came as an absolute shock. I'll post some before lengthening and post lengthening femur photos. That should be quite interesting to see proportion-wise.
And only femurs, internal nail. I'd never attempt anything like this again!
I hope you will actualize scars pictures
But at the moment it seems good
Quote from: doomsday on July 20, 2017, 12:05:29 PMUNICORN if your longer leg is not clicking, in your case I would push and match it. lets us know what will doc from nhs say.
Hi Doomsday,
When I last saw Guichet some weeks ago, he said that his nail caps at 10cm max. So should I ever reach there with accidental clicks, it'll just hard stop there (hopefully).
So that's the hand I've been dealt with.
Quote from: theophilo on July 20, 2017, 01:16:55 PMI hope you will actualize scars pictures
But at the moment it seems good
Yeah, I posted some before and after scar pictures. You can see, it's really minimal. And I don't have good skin to begin with. I've asian skin that develops keloid and scars easily.
After the wounds heal, I start with Hansaplast Scar Reducer silicone sheets immediately. And I find they flatten and remove all excess skin growth leaving me with only just some discoloring which I'm currently applying some lemon juice to lighten.
These are the one-time surgery areas.
In the sites where I've had multiple surgeries, on my fractured leg, the scars are more complicated as they're SUNKEN. So there's nothing much I can do, it looks like a crocodile took a scrumptious bite out of my ass. I understand those types of scars need silicone fillers exactly like what women do to plump up their faces.
I've had ass fat injected in my face before, so I guess it's time I inject face fat back into my ass. How ironic! They do say 'one good turn deserves another'? 
Quote from: jerkey on July 19, 2017, 01:03:32 AMAnd please please don't think of this as something you have to "beat" as you can't tell your body to grow more bone...
Another thing is the medication. When I was lengthening, I took tramadol on a regular basis. Only when I stopped taking them after lengthening that I realized, as an opioid, it was allowing me to feel almost zero anxiety about the passing time. When I came off I sort of woke up to the fact that all this time passed by in my life. Also, I was addicted to sleeping pills (benzodiazepines and imovane) when I was in my early 20's. I tried multiple times to quit, but only after ~2 years and going cold turkey for 2 weeks (when I didn't sleep at all) was I able to come off of them. Because the benzos also dampen anxiety, and when they come off the anxiety is worse, I made the mistake of lashing out and losing some of my friends. I am frankly scared of sleeping pills to this day for this reason.
By the way Jerkey, you're absolutely right about trying to convince myself that I've to beat this ailment. Because I was a professional gymnast as a kid, I had always believed that "mind over matter" overcomes any hurdles. I've had to learn how to forgive myself and not beat myself up everyday for this decision.
And the painkillers/sleeping pills we need to survive this surgery really doesn't help. In the beginning of this journey, I had dreamt that leg lengthening meant being painless on painkillers all day while busting ass at the gym to grow taller and fitter with my classmates.
But as everyone completes and leaves, each day blurs into weeks and then months, and before you know it, a year has passed. And one day, you wake up to realize everything and everyone has moved on except yourself. That's how my non-union group feels, that we're left behind, by our doctors, by our friends and by our life potential.
I say this with very little bitterness. We're all striving to find ways to heal and embrace life as taller people. Unfortunately, it's not a game of half measures.
It's been one year now since I made the leap to improve my life through cosmetic leg lengthening.
I've since resigned from my job, tried to retire (failed), shied away from friends , hide from society, moved homes and read a book a week. One of these books inspired me to take stock of all my possesions and I've used the spare time to list them on eBay. My proportions have changed since my mini runway days and I can use the funds for a better purpose.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/iloveparis888
In the meantime, here's a glimpse of who I was before I succumbed to vanity & low self confidence and paid the crippling price for it... If I only knew how to be happy with who I was, as I was.
with Kevin Spacey
with Hugh Grant
with Donatella Versace
with Joshua Bell
with Martina Navratilova
with Jimmy Choo
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