By Uwa Ede-Osifo
A 26-year-old man who had the procedure to increase his height from 5'7" to 5'10"explains what it was like.
At 5'7", Alex considered himself short. The 26-year-old, who asked that his real name not be used to maintain his privacy, said he was sick of insults and jeering comments about his height.
Shorter men “routinely get spoken down to just because of this trait that they can’t control,” Alex said.
So last January, he got a leg-lengthening operation to increase his height to 5’10".
“My goal was never to be tall. It’s to be in a place where no one comments on my height,” Alex said.
Leg lengthening is an intense and expensive process but one that has become more popular and accepted in the last five years, according to Dr. Shahab Mahboubian, a surgeon at the Height Lengthening Institute in Burbank, California, who performed Alex’s operations.
“I even have 60-, 65-year-old guys that have come to me to undergo the procedure because it just doesn’t stop. The 'short' jokes keep going on and they feel inferior,” he said.
The $75,000, four-hour operation, which is not generally covered by insurance, involves cutting the thigh bones in each leg and inserting rods inside them. Then over the next three to four months, the rods are lengthened by up to 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) per day, via an external remote control. New bone grows over the rods.
Physical therapy is required: For four months following his surgery, Alex went four to five times per week and used a walker. As he regained his mobility, he switched to using a cane.
The final step of the process is removing the rods. Alex returned for that hourlong procedure a year after the first operation, and his insurance footed the $10,000 bill. In total, Alex estimated the whole process cost him $100,000.
Shorter men “routinely get spoken down to just because of this trait that they can’t control,” Alex said.
So last January, he got a leg-lengthening operation to increase his height to 5’10".
“My goal was never to be tall. It’s to be in a place where no one comments on my height,” Alex said.
Leg lengthening is an intense and expensive process but one that has become more popular and accepted in the last five years, according to Dr. Shahab Mahboubian, a surgeon at the Height Lengthening Institute in Burbank, California, who performed Alex’s operations.
“I even have 60-, 65-year-old guys that have come to me to undergo the procedure because it just doesn’t stop. The 'short' jokes keep going on and they feel inferior,” he said.
The $75,000, four-hour operation, which is not generally covered by insurance, involves cutting the thigh bones in each leg and inserting rods inside them. Then over the next three to four months, the rods are lengthened by up to 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) per day, via an external remote control. New bone grows over the rods.
Physical therapy is required: For four months following his surgery, Alex went four to five times per week and used a walker. As he regained his mobility, he switched to using a cane.
The final step of the process is removing the rods. Alex returned for that hourlong procedure a year after the first operation, and his insurance footed the $10,000 bill. In total, Alex estimated the whole process cost him $100,000.
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