
Radical surgery permanently extends your legs - RickJWagner
https://futurism.com/neoscope/radical-surgery-taller-leg-lengthening
======
hprotagonist
A classmate of mine in 3rd grade spent an entire year in more or less constant
pain when one of his legs needed growth plate surgery. He had metal pins
sticking out of his legs, and like you would with braces, they were forcibly
separated a millimeter or so a week for a year. This is like having a broken
femur for 12 months that's intentionally never allowed to heal so the bone has
to keep regrowing to fill in the gap.

i don’t recommend it for aesthetics! in his case, it was required and
something they wanted to do before his growth plates closed completely. As a
result he's had a normal adulthood.

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jmclnx
If I am rich enough to have that done, I would rather have an app that
displayed my bank balance on a small lapel button :) I'll be here all week :)

Anyway if a person's only dating criteria is your height and they themselves
are not around that height, then I think it is best to stay as far away from
that person as possible. I knew couple people like that and over the years
they have had lots of relationship issues.

~~~
whatshisface
92.2% or so of men are taller than their heterosexual partners. This is
usually attributed to women's preferences, although I'm sure there are some
men who insist on their SOs being shorter than them. Avoiding people who think
height is an extremely important factor may not be possible.

Source: [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-common-is-it-
for-a-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-common-is-it-for-a-man-to-
be-shorter-than-his-partner/)

~~~
jplayer01
Oh wow. I didn’t know it was that uncommon. I’m fairly short, so every gf I’ve
had was taller. But it’s terribly clear women have filtered me out often
because of my height. It’s depressing.

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wyclif
I'd rather just watch Gattaca and experience this on the screen rather than in
real life. I'm 5'9" and totally content with that.

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thundergolfer
I’ve had this surgery done on my right leg 4 times. 3 times on my fibula, at
4, 11, and 17 years old, and once at 26 years old on my femur.

The first two had me using the external lengthening frame, which makes for a
gruesome looking leg with thin long screws drilled through your bone and
poking out to connect to two metal rings whose spacing controlled the
lengthening. It’s about as painful as you’d imagine it is to wake up after
surgery with a half dozen screws through now your two pieces of fibula. I
remember being scared of hitting the frame on things because of how painful it
was.

At 17 I was able to take advantage of an internal lengthening rod, so no frame
needed. It’s much nicer than a frame and I would say that is what all the
article’s patients use. Remarkable medical tech.

By the time my last one was near I’d forgotten how bad the experience was. I
took only 2 weeks off work. I was stupidly overconfident. I spent 1 week in
hospital really drugged up and in heaps of pain, with a freshly broken femur,
and then got home and had a worse week. It was too painful to sleep for a
couple of months and the lengthening itself was awful, as my quad muscles were
being stretched in ways that a child’s muscles will handle but my adult
muscles were hating. I’d spend over an hour a day stretching my leg that
originally could only bend 50 degrees, and more than once the pain brought me
to tears.

Once I could get to a physiotherapist she was shocked at how cut up and
bruised the surgery had made me. Over half the surface area of my right
buttock, hip, and upper leg was purple, with 6 new scars. By that point, a
month in, I had come to reckon with how brutal this surgery is, and that I had
months and months of recovery left. I was not a happy person. Pretty angry, to
be honest.

I couldn’t walk unaided by crutches for over 6 months, and I’d been aching to
be able to walk since about day 14 of my recovery.

My right femur is now 4cm longer. People doing this surgery for cosmetic
reasons do both legs and much more than 4cm at a time, sometimes 12cm. 12cm in
one go must be agony for adult muscles, and it would take a over a year and
half to get walking again. Having just experienced 4cm on one leg, it’s
incredible that we let people do this to themselves so that they can be more
attractive.

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blahbhthrow3748
It's amazing to me that to get gender confirming surgery you need a letter
from a psychologist and an unrelated doctor to prove you're sane enough, but
if you're a rich dude you can just pay to have your legs broken so you can be
over 6 feet tall.

~~~
rsynnott
Ethically, these doctors are supposed to get reassure themselves that their
patients are compos mentis. In practice, though, actually doing so effectively
would devastate the plastic surgery industry, especially this sort of fringe
stuff. Note that there seem to be about three doctors worldwide who do this as
a cosmetic procedure. (It is worth noting that the doctor in the article says
he's turned people away, so some sort of screening is presumably being
applied.)

There was an amazing Channel 4 (UK TV channel) documentary a while back about
penis enlargement surgery. _Every single person_ who appeared in it should
probably have been referred to a psychologist. One guy had it done about 10
times.

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tdons
Are there also downsides?

Will my legs be more prone to breaking (for instance, when jumping)?

Will my gait, or my balance be altered? Will this become a non-issue over
time?

I'm curious.

~~~
thundergolfer
Having to undergo the process is a huge downside. I’ve done it 4 times. Forgot
how bad the first three were (thanks brain) but my latest was a terrible time.

Another downside is that you will have scars all over your legs.

Your legs should not be more prone to breaking.

Gait and balance will initially of course be affected, but there’s no long
term problems there.

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m4rtink
Actually, this can happen also by accident during hip joint replacement
surgery many older people take these days. The chance is not very high, but it
sucks, as you then have one leg slightly longer, causing all manner of
problems. Reportedly people then have to use special shooes but it still
sucks.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
The "special shoes" really just depends on the extent of your problem. I've
worked with folks that needed a significant lift on one foot: these were not
cheap at all.

On the other hand, my mother has one leg slightly longer than the other. It
does cause her pain, but all she needs is a shoe insert to correct the issue.
It really isn't a big deal at all, and avoiding pain is definitely worth it.

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gkfasdfasdf
Having legs disproportionately long compared to the torso isn't ideal either.

~~~
onionisafruit
I currently have disproportionately short legs, so I may be the ideal
candidate for this. However, there’s no way I would put myself through this
painful surgery just to end up having to explain why I’m suddenly taller to
everybody. It would make something I’m insecure about a conversation starter
for the next year.

~~~
lightgreen
> having to explain why I’m suddenly taller to everybody

Don’t worry about them: if these conversations become annoying to you, just
find better understanding friends.

I’m not arguing for or against this procedure though: it can be helpful for
some people and can be damaging (both physically and mentally) to others like
any other cosmetic surgery.

~~~
stedaniels
Your friends being concerned about your well-being and speaking to you about
it are much better than those who don't.

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leftyted
> “I think that’s something that’s so powerful too — people will always be
> three inches taller or whatever you made them,” Debiparshad said. “They’ll
> die and be in their casket and decompose three inches longer. It’s very
> permanent.”

Possibly the best argument _against_ getting this kind of bizarre cosmetic
surgery.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I don't really understand why that's an argument against it. We do permanent
things all the freaking time. Holes in earlobes and tattoos. We remove - and
sometimes install - teeth! We patch folks up with metal, install breast and
butt implants, install electronics to help hearts and brains. We suck away
fat! Not all of these are minor cosmetic surgeries - some are major surgeries
and optional!

And besides, if it weren't permanent, why would one go through the pain of the
surgery in the first place? I'd actually argue that if the permanence is
something that bothers you, this is certainly not something you would
personally consider, but it certainly isn't really an argument against it
being available for the wider population.

~~~
leftyted
Because you're going to die and your body is going to decay and those extra
inches mean absolutely nothing.

~~~
BurningFrog
By this argument, any activity during your life means absolutely nothing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_too_much](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_too_much)

~~~
leftyted
That doesn't even remotely follow from what I wrote.

But thanks for your very helpful link to wikipedia.

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hifumin
There's also leg shortening surgery, apparently it's a thing in places where
there's some stigma around being taller than normal.

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knolax
Reminds me of this:

[https://jezebel.com/stories-about-my-
brother-1835651181](https://jezebel.com/stories-about-my-brother-1835651181)

Author's brother died from am embolism resulting from height extension
surgery.

~~~
commandlinefan
Mind-blowing that she tries to blame that on _men_.

~~~
rsynnott
She blamed it on ‘the patriarchy’, that is, essentially, traditional gender
roles and expectations. Those absolutely harm both women and men. Why was the
brother insecure over his height in the first place? Almost certainly because
society says that men _should_ be taller.

~~~
BurningFrog
This is about the fact that women strongly prefer a man that is considerably
taller than themselves.

If this is a cultural norm or an inherent part of human nature is both
debatable and researchable. To me, it has all the marks of a builtin
preference of our species.

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bitxbitxbitcoin
Doesn't this permanently increase the number of cells that you have, and
therefore augments the chance that you'll get cancer?

~~~
Zenbit_UX
Everything augments the chances you get cancer. Your chances are higher
reading this now than when you had originally posted your comment. So, yes but
also, who cares...

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ape4
Would the body be out of proportion? If somebody is tall everything thing else
is big/long too.

~~~
rsynnott
It probably wouldn't be that noticeable; there's a lot of natural variation
there anyway. I've longer arms and legs that would be normal for my torso; in
practice it mostly just manifests in minor problems with clothes (in
particular it's very hard to get a shirt that fits).

~~~
rsynnott
(And I expect someone both wealthy and vain enough to consider this would just
get around that one with tailoring).

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symplee
I guess that's one way to get a leg up on the competition.

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swiftcoder
You know, as someone tall enough to walk into doorways in older buildings, and
too tall to fold oneself into a compact car... Height advantages are
subjective.

~~~
eyegor
On the plus side you get to build up forehead calluses, especially if you have
a basement.

~~~
knolax
Become an IRL Klingon.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Today is a good day to duck!

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seattle_spring
Sure this might be neat, but a dolphinoplasty is what people in the world
really need to feel whole.

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reedwolf
And then I can finally go to Titan.

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overcast
This is some Gattaca shit right here. Only for the desperate.

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dbcurtis
Home Depot has drywall stilts under US$100. Just sayin'

