RedChair's Diary - Dr.Sringary

[ktala91641]

This is RedChair's Diary with Dr.Sringary.

[RedChair]

I'm doing tibia lengthening with Dr.  Sringari in India.

I am male, early 20's.  Initial height is 5'7 and my target height is 5'9 (i. e.  ~5 cm of lengthening).  I've lengthened 1 cm as of today.

What follows is a brief outline of my experience so far.

The surgery
The actual surgery has so far been the easiest part of this whole endeavor.  The anesthesiologist made sure I felt zero pain or discomfort throughout the procedure.

The surgery ended around 4pm.  By 5pm I was back in the hospital room. 

Then, the anesthesia began to wear off, and the pain started to kick in.  Probably the most intense pain I have ever felt.  The nurses gave me some IV painkiller and then it was fine.

I stayed in the hospital for four days. 


Guest House
The guest house is pretty decent.  There is TV and internet.  There is a caretaker 24/7 who helps us with everything.  He's a really nice and friendly guy.  He seems very experienced in caring for LL patients.  He always seems to know exactly how to deal with little things that might be causing discomfort.  He makes breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Breakfast is usually toast with eggs (hard-boiled or omelette).  Lunch and dinner is mostly Indian food, i. e.  rice and curry with vegetables and chicken.


Dr.  Sringari
The doctor visits us every few days.  He checks up on everything (pain, discomfort, issues, etc. ) and makes sure we're doing everything we're supposed to (physio, supplements, etc. )


Physio
A physio therapist is here twice a day.  Typically ~3pm and ~7pm.  We go through a number of exercises and he advises on which exercises I must do throughout each day and how often.


The pain
For the first seven days after surgery I was on Tramadol painkillers.  Sleeping was practically impossible without it.

I started getting pretty massive headaches and moderately severe constipation, so I made the decision to stop taking the painkillers on day 7.  First night was rough, but after that it was ok.

I have not taken any since.  Discomfort is still there, but pain is intermittent at worst.


Challenges encountered so far

• I have yet to get accustomed to sleeping on my back.  I have always slept on my side.  With frames on my legs, I have to sleep on my back.
• Going to the bathroom, number twos specifically.  It is surprisingly difficult to do with frames on your legs.  Until I was able to put my legs down (which was very recently), I've had to do it with both legs fully extended and elevated.  I'll leave it up to your imagination how that works.  But, needless to say, "Life, uh, finds a way"

[Bigfaker]

Hey, how are things going for you, RedChair?

[RedChair]

Hi Bigfaker. 

It's going alright. 

I'm at 5 cm now, and waiting to have the frames removed. 

I have minimal if any ballerina at this point, and I'm pretty happy with my results. 

I figured I'd rather stop at 5 and hopefully have a fast recovery, than pursue additional centimetres and risk encountering complications like ballerina.

[Joe2000]

Make sure youre waking with walker or crutches. Always wear foot holders even at night! dont get frames right after distraction, keep them for at least 3 weeks then get the frames off.

Ive been through LL and those are really important facts.

[RedChair]

Thank you Joe.

Do you know what is roughly the time frame from frame removal to walking normally, assuming minimal to zero ballerina? And what activity-level is acceptable once I get to that stage?

[Joe2000]

Depends how much you walk during distraction. If you gonna walk a lot your legs will be sooner strong enough to cope without crutches if you lucky maybe 2 or 3 months. If you got ballerina or knee bending , forget it. People years after LL got problems. Thats why I told you what you need to do to avoid it. If you cannot avoid ballerina you should stop distraction. Thats the reality but a lot of people are obsessed and end up with messed up legs. 

[RedChair]

Quick Update

I'm due to have my next x-ray in a few days. 

By then, I will know how well my bones have consolidated so far.   Hopefully, I will start walking again very soon. 

The small amount of ballerina that I had in my right foot seems to have disappeared almost completely by now.   I expect to regain full flexibility once I start walking regularly. 


Other than that, I'm doing pretty good. 

[RedChair]

Update

I'm walking with crutches now.

Consolidation is very good (I have been told).

My legs feel pretty good too.  Almost normal sometimes.

Sringari has advised me to wait until after the next x-ray (in about a month) before I should start walking with no support.

Tightness of the tendons is still there a little bit, but it goes away after walking three or four steps with the crutches.

[hakunamatata55]

Hi Redchair
Sory to say that, didn't mean to demoralise you but your recovery speed is very slow.  You should have started walking till now.  I assume that your exercises are not working well or something went wrong.  Please upload your pictures. 
I hope you didn't have bowing of tibia and nail because Dr Sringari's  patient faced lot of trouble usually.
Appreciate if you upload your X-ray.
Take care

[RedChair]

Hi hakunamatata55.

I am walking, but with crutches.

Like I said, my legs feel almost normal.  I think Sringari is just being extra cautious when he tells me to wait until next x-ray before I shed the support entirely.  After my last x-ray he said that my consolidation was "very good", and that I would "probably" even be ok to begin walking with no support, but that he'd prefer if I waited until this next x-ray, just to be safe.  Maybe, because I've left India, he feels it's better to err on the side of caution because he won't be able to monitor my progress as closely.

The legs look straight as before (except longer).  I've been trying to discern if there might be a very slight curve in one leg, but when I look in the mirror it looks well within normal, I think.

I just searched "shins" on Google, and this picture came up: https://subpop-img. s3. amazonaws. com/asset/artist_images/attachments/000/004/057/max_960/2954. jpg?1389019759 When I stand in the same way, my legs look kinda similar to those of the third guy from the left.

I still experience some tightness in the tendons and hamstring, mostly when I wake up or when I've been sitting for extended periods.  This makes it a little painful to walk barefoot (until tendons have stretched), but when I walk with shoes it feels very normal.  I expect that this will clear up once I begin walking everyday without crutches, but I'll probably be taking small steps initially.