Quote from: paj on August 11, 2018, 11:33:16 AMYour pain levels are the most interesting and alarming part of this. I expected the pain would be significant, as you are having your legs fractured as part of the process, but I thought nerve pain was rare? Also, I've heard descriptions of the pain from this surgery as being anywhere from a 2 to 6 out of 10, but your descriptions of it as 9-10/10 bring a whole new perspective. Very informative.
Not quite sure whose pain levels you were referring to. I had pain 9/10 ONCE, for about an hour during the hospital stay after the femurs surgery. Otherwise the pain was 6-8 intermittently. I've logged it using this app called "PainScale", until about 3 weeks after the femurs surgery, at which point it became uninteresting to log because the pain was too low or too random to do anything about.
Quote from: paj on August 11, 2018, 11:33:16 AMDid the Stryde patient appear to be in similar levels of discomfort/pain?
No. He was doing much better. He also only had the femurs done.
People have asked me which segment was more painful. They were both painful enough during the first three weeks that the difference was insignificant. The femurs were worse long-term because they came with hip pain that prevented sleeping on the side. Also, when I get up from a chair, I have pain 4-6 in my right femur sometimes, but never tibia pain.
Quote from: paj on August 11, 2018, 11:33:16 AMOne of my major concerns is the use of opioid painkillers. I've been prescribed them before for other pain but never used them and just toughed it out. Now I wish I remember what I was prescribed to get an idea of what level of pain my doctor thought I was in, because for me it was a 3-4/10 but he must have thought it was much worse.
If you want to avoid opioids, look into cannabis formulations with increased CBD (the non-psychoative component of the plant). Cannabis doesn't cause addiction, and for some people (including me), it's much more effective (in the THC+CBD form) than opioids. Of course, pharma doesn't like this because it's much cheaper to get some weed than to pay for oxycodone and the like. Check https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-marijuana-is-legal-opioid-prescriptions-fall/.
Also, I've written extensively about pain at https://overrideyourgenetics.com/pain/.
Quote from: taller_in_Kiev on August 11, 2018, 12:10:18 PM$220k WTF???!! You'd have to be a multi-millionaire to justify spending that much on LL, so I hope you are? And even then, it's a ridiculous amount, particularly in your case, reading your post - sorry to say.
$180 for the surgery, ~$15k for accommodations & transport + whatever for food and fun in West Palm Beach =~ $220k. The exact amount might have been less, but on the scale of paying the loans back over 5-7 years, it doens't make a difference.
I'm far from a millionaire, but after the surgery, I'm making more than I've ever made. Funny how that works. Puru is in the same situation. For me, having loans to pay back is a strong motivation to get stuff done.
Quote from: taller_in_Kiev on August 11, 2018, 12:10:18 PMAbout the crutches, I would beg to differ. I used the underarm ones, you can mimic walking better with those, plus they keep you more upright with better posture. Make sure you adjust the length so that they fit snugly under your underarms when standing up straight.
I admit I didn't try crutches for more than one day, but with the walker, I offloaded a minimal amount of weight on my arms, and was able to take long steps with good form and no balance issues. fallen774 did the same at Dr. M's advice. Once I switched to using one cane (which is what Paley advises for STRYDE patients), I progressed from walker to walking unassisted in about 3 weeks (bought cane July 9, recorded that pool video July 29). How fast was your progress with crutches back in 2004, and how confident are you that you remember that accurately?
@notatroll: you're welcome, but please don't quote an entire long post with a video in it just to say "thanks" 
Quadrilateral lengthening @ the Paley Institute - tibias 4cm + femurs 6cm
Thanks for the information regarding pain. I guess when I saw that one time description of 9/10 pain you had my mind fixated on it because, well, its pain. It makes sense that it was post surgery. I hope everything goes well for you. Stryde sounds like a massive improvement.
How long do you spend walking/cycling a day? Do you break it up into shorter sessions? Is pain the cue you use to determine if you have done enough for the day?
Quote from: OverrideYourGenetics on August 11, 2018, 06:20:34 AMThanks for the kind words, Mirin.
I've noticed in your signature that you're already 179cm tall and want to gain 3-5cm. This is something I personally can't comprehend (being 5'10" is a dream), and you're already taller than 70% of men. I'm curious about your motives for getting a relatively small increase (3-5 cm). Is it the large wingspan?
I also only have a 30 inch inseam.. very short and stubby legs, 6'2 wingspan and long torso
I have had a lot of insecurities when it comes to height growing up. Mostly all my cousins and my brother (6'1) are over 6'. I played football in high school and was very good, but did not get a college scholarship for it due to height. one of the coaches who saw me play actually told me height at my position was the only reason he didn't offer. However, my brother who was 6'1 got a full ride scholarship to play college ball when I racked up way better stats than him at the same high school. I have no intention of playing football post LL lol, but I have had many circumstances come up like this in my life where I have been looked over, which only made my insecurities worse and made me realize how much stature actually means to society. Also relatively speaking, I always found myself to be short growing up due to the family I grew up in.
-Not doing this for girls. I have a loving gf who I have no intention of telling about this surgery that I will have in the future (lengthening small amount). Also will be in medical school, so I have done a lot of research on this surgical procedure myself as well
Quote from: OverrideYourGenetics on August 11, 2018, 08:42:44 PM
I'm far from a millionaire, but after the surgery, I'm making more than I've ever made. Funny how that works. Puru is in the same situation. For me, having loans to pay back is a strong motivation to get stuff done.
Agreed. Having loans is a big motivator to focus and do stuff to improve your career.
Quote from: OverrideYourGenetics on August 11, 2018, 05:22:34 AM1. I haven't yet seen improvements in my life to justify the ~$220k total price tag for this surgery. I went from 5'5" to 5'8" so I'm still shorter than 70% of males. While I am taller than 75% of women, this isn't very useful as I already have a girlfriend. Nobody at work noticed that I was taller - not surprising, given we work at desks all the time. My friends were like "wow" the first day I came back home, but didn't care about it later (as they should). I haven't been to bars/clubs (not my scene) or social events yet, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
At work, some people (esp. women) are shorter than me. This makes *me* feel self-conscious so I prefer to sit, in order to not make them look up.
This makes sense. The biggest improvement I saw was in dating. Career wise, being short isn't really a setback for a software engineer. This may be why a lot of shorter people take this career subconsciously. A lot of tech CEOs are short (Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai). My current CEO is 5'4".
Quote from: paj on August 11, 2018, 09:28:46 PMHow long do you spend walking/cycling a day? Do you break it up into shorter sessions? Is pain the cue you use to determine if you have done enough for the day?
Initially I thought cycling was really effective for flexibility (as Puru noted), but in my case, improvements only lasted for about 5 minutes. Walking seemed more effective.
Now I use a walkstation at work to walk while reading, and yes, pain is the cue for when to stop. Yesterday I did one 20 minutes session at 1 mile per hour. I haven't yet done multiple sessions a day. I suspect the benefits plateau, because on days when I had to walk a lot vs. walking much less, I didn't feel disproportionately large improvements the next day. In other words, I suspect that time to heal and sleep aid the recovery more than the exercises I've been doing, and since I don't have much time these days to go all out on speeding up my recovery, I'm just letting healing take its course. But my all means, if you have time, do exercise more.
@Mirin, it's sad that people are so superficial where you live, and judge you so much for something like stature, over which you had little very control. Fortunately that's not the case here in Silicon Valley. Or at least people pretend it doesn't matter... I'm sure there's plenty of unconscious bias against short people, and I wish there were an Implicit association test for that.
Alright, it's September 15, 6 months sharp since my tibias surgery, ~5 since the femurs, and about 3 months since I've stopped lengthening. I haven't been active on the forum because it seems the forum itself is badly neglected and I don't want to invest in something that might disappear tomorrow, but anyway, thought I'd give an update. As always, my blog is up there and will be up for the foreseeable futures - https://overrideyourgenetics.com.
Progress
- I've been able to walk unassisted for more than a month, and... I went to Burning Man. Crazy, I know. Walked 2+ miles every day, got a blister, damaged my ankles and needed ~10 days for the ankle pain to go away, but - I survived Burning Man. To understand how large Burning Man is, those dots are cars and the longer ones are RVs:
- I can climb stairs unassisted. Going down stairs is painful, and I can do it by putting a hand on the railing.
- Today I was able to squat unassisted. It's surprisingly tiring: after 10 lightly assisted squats (one hand on the back of a chair), my heart rate was around 100.
Limitations
- I still can't jog, let alone run.
- The gait is a bit wobbly (unless I really pay attention to walking correctly), and about 2x slower than normal
- Flexibility is poor: I can do maybe 90 degree splits (vs. the ~150 before), and I can only come about ~20cm from the floor if I try to touch my toes standing with my knees locked.
I shouldn't complain though, because I didn't spend much time in the gym or stretching. Progress in mobility and strength has been rather random. I expected that after walking a lot at Burning Man, I'd make great progress, but no - the ankle pain set me back by about a month. Then within a week, I became able to squat... go figure. What I did in that week that might have any connection to leg strength or mobility was one 13-minute session on the StairMaster (climbing neverending stairs, like an escalator). Whether progress is delayed by so many days that it's hard to establish cause & effect, or whether what really advances the recovery is time and sleep, I can't quite tell. Anyway, if you have time, do stretch and walk and bike.
PS: I've been on TV
it is pretty disheartening that your recovery has been so slow considering the very conservative amount you have gained...
@OverrideYourGenetics If you don't mind me asking, why lengthen only 7.5cm total though? Paying 180k at the best institute for limb lengthening and you go from 5'5" to 5'8" when you could lengthen to 5'10" or more?
The amount of money doesn't really matter if you develop complications or face unexpected amount of pain. There are no guarantees in limb lengthening.
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