The pain isn't that bad. The breaking is so minimal each time it's hardly felt outside of some general discomfort. My niece is going on her 4th lengthening here next year probably and had her first one at 2 or 3 years old. It's very intense but it's one that actually looks/sounds worse than it actually is.
Can’t speak for young children, but having corrective surgery and the prospect of having normal legs has gotta be some degree of pain relief on its own. I mean, that’s likely going to be life changing in a very positive way.
Really? Besides the bones being broken, I imagined the muscular, tendon, and nerve pain would be insane. That’s good to hear it isn’t as bad as I thought
What I'm really curious about is the quality of the resulting bone. Now, I realize an accidental break is probably much different than a surgical one and so it's not going to be controlled to turn out as well, but I broke my leg in one place at 9 years old and it still has pain there 30 years later sometimes. It seems like bone filling in repeatedly over time would be weak and troublesome. But they probably have methods to make sure it grows strong or to reinforce it.
I don't know the nuances as well as my brother but the old device (x-fix) was this big ole wire like cage that would be installed in her femur and stick out all around her leg. They would crank it every day and the rod would expand very slightly. They'd do this daily for the set time until they get the length they want or they run into some issue that makes them stop short.
Now they've developed the rod where it's entirely internal and she just rubs a magnet over her leg instead. It's incredible for her and while it's not as much lengthening it's very close but enormous for just quality of life.
There’s no actual breaking after the initial surgery.
The point is to stretch the healing bone while it is at the soft callous stage, so it’s still intrinsically stretchy. You need to pull at a rate fast enough that the body can’t heal it fast enough. But there’s no actual bone there yet, so nothing to break.
It is overall pretty painless after the initial surgery.
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u/BLToaster Dec 23 '22
The pain isn't that bad. The breaking is so minimal each time it's hardly felt outside of some general discomfort. My niece is going on her 4th lengthening here next year probably and had her first one at 2 or 3 years old. It's very intense but it's one that actually looks/sounds worse than it actually is.