Quote from: vincentfreeman on April 01, 2023, 11:34:51 AMSo the last few months have been an absolute whirlwind, and I have had very little time or mental clarity to update this dairy.
I returned to work pretty much 4-5 weeks after the surgery and the last few months flew by. Overall this has been a formative and singular life experience which hasn't felt completely real since the day of the operation. I feel like once I am done lengthening at some point it will hit me that I really did take this crazy step that I have contemplated for so long.
I am doing quite well, I honestly expected the surgery to be significantly more difficult in terms of pain levels, clicking, lack of mobility etc. but frankly my biggest issue has been forgetting that my bones are broken... and being a bit too careless constantly (walking without crutches, going up and down stairs quickly etc.). Back when I was in the rehab clinic I could see that I had far more mobility and flexibility than the other patients with a lot less pain either because I had extremely good flexibility to start with or simply because of my bone structure.
Because of my very high mobility I returned to a fairly normal, carless routine pretty quickly and this led to a minor complication (one of the screws bent, which is being fixed free of charge) which I will detail in my next few posts but nothing that led to too much set back.
I am nearly at 7cm now which is also hard to believe! everything looks normal on my x-ray, clicking technique was eventually perfected to become extremely painless (although I had a lot of trouble with my left leg for a while) and I am optimistic things won't deteriorate from here to my target. I am going to post a recap in more detail of the last few months in the coming weeks and some of the insight I learnt a long the way.
Why has it taken you this long just to reach 7cm?
Vincent Freeman - Femur Lengthening w Becker/Betz - Nov 2022
Sorry that wasn't clear in my last post - I am at nearly *8cm* not 7 (1490 clicks so far) and that's not including the initial 6mm gap which would actually bring me to 8.3cm
I did lose about a week after the flight back as I got sick. Dr Becker also had me drop down to 14 clicks at around ~5cm, and then again to 12 clicks the other week. I think the idea is to keep lowering the amount of clicks as you approach target height.
I am going to try to put together a timeline recap of the last few months because a lot has happened since December
Quote from: vincentfreeman on April 02, 2023, 03:56:05 AMSorry that wasn't clear in my last post - I am at nearly *8cm* not 7 (1490 clicks so far) and that's not including the initial 6mm gap which would actually bring me to 8.3cm
I did lose about a week after the flight back as I got sick. Dr Becker also had me drop down to 14 clicks at around ~5cm, and then again to 12 clicks the other week. I think the idea is to keep lowering the amount of clicks as you approach target height.
I am going to try to put together a timeline recap of the last few months because a lot has happened since December
so 1 click is 0.005mm?
Quote from: we.live.once on April 02, 2023, 06:32:01 AMso 1 click is 0.005mm?
1 click is .052mm
Amazing journal so far and your progress is inspiring. My surgery with Becker is on 5/10/23, very excited.
You mentioned you noticed you were more mobile / flexible than the other patients. What exercises / stretches stood out to you? Ideally, I'd like to see if I am as flexible as you! 
I met with Victor (C4L) and he mentioned I am very loose and limber, and should do fine. Another data point be great.
Looking forward to your timeline update brother!
Another classic ad becker's diary... all becker accounts are back together = apes together strong 
Folks, most people on this forum don't get surgery. You only believe those who upload pictures and videos. Also, most accounts are owned by the same person. The feature of dr becker diaries is the lack of pictures and videos lol Pay attention to the dr becker diaries, the same accounts are always texting each other's diaries. In this way, they increase their post level and advertise. Most people think they are real. They make a nice plot, but it's getting boring now. A new dr becker diary every week, and the same fake accounts always flooding that diary... No pictures, no videos..
dude it's just more effort to upload photos and videos and editing things out in a video for privacy. But I will start uploading pictures...
https://imgur.com/a/mCmw3NQ
Mmy initial X-rays from 25/11/2022
Rehab centre in freiburg
https://imgur.com/a/hCXWeeq
Quote from: vincentfreeman on April 07, 2023, 08:15:09 AMdude it's just more effort to upload photos and videos and editing out my face in a video for privacy. But I will start uploading pictures...
https://imgur.com/a/mCmw3NQ
Mmy initial X-rays from 25/11/2022
Rehab centre in freiburg
https://imgur.com/a/hCXWeeq
can I upload the x-ray and clinical picture and claim that I have surgery? No pictures of your legs? Prove it with your username.
just x-ray picture and clinical picture wow you had surger lmao
Nvm i just saw you troll basically half the diaries on here
But here's my username on the photo lmao 
https://imgur.com/a/dD7rZBB
Quote from: SpeedDialer on November 27, 2022, 05:36:17 PMCongrats on finishing the first cm of your journey!
Something I'm curious about- is clicking harder for your right leg than the left?
With gnail, every patient I've talked to and myself also have noticed that the big click of the right leg is the hardest and most painful click by far (though often it is painless, not always). Based on Betz's official youtube videos though, it looks like clicking on betzbone 2.0 looks as if it is easier than gnail
Initially the right leg was harder and the range needed to click it was a bit more than the left which would click easily after a few days though it became sort of the reverse particularly the out/un-click on my left leg would make a lot of noise and feel way more painful, not sure if it subsided eventually because it gets easier when you get past a certain number of cm's or if it came down to technique. Getting good at clicking was basically several factors:
1) Relaxing the muscle, because of the pain initially you grimace and without realising it tense the muscle which makes it very difficult to click. A big part of it is purely psychological. For example I stopped clicking when I got sick after my flight back home and really struggled to start clicking again, a lot of it was just psychological and thinking that there was something wrong, once you actually click you realise the pain isn't that bad and a lot of it is in your head, grimacing, feeling like it's impossible etc. once you start clicking again you realise how much of it was you tensing up and psychologically stopping yourself from clicking
2) Flexibility - stretching the buttocks and holding the click a bit further past the range of motion needed to click seems to reduce the pain over time
3) Technique - you eventually figure out an ideal technique, I notice the angle of my leg (i.e my hamstring relative to my calves) was too big, and if I kept it much closer to my calf I needed a much smaller range of motion to click. This was also different from my left leg to my right (right need a slightly bigger angle for minimal pain)
4) time - I can't tell whether this was the biggest factor or just the technique change, but everyone says after a certain number of cm the pain goes away/subsides significantly and clicking get's easier (usually around 4cm or so)
The other thing I did is splitting my clicking up into many small sessions through the day (e.g. 2 clicks every 2 hours or 3*5 instead of one big clicking session). From several research papers I read higher clicking frequency in smaller increments leads to better healing over all, and is much less painful. This may not work for you if you find the first click the hardest which was the case for me too in the beginning but once I had my clicking technique down the pain would actually increase as I did more clicks and the first came pretty easily so splitting it was both easy to do and made more sense from a healing standpoint
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