Adding a few inches more to one’s height, is a dream for most brief statured people. A Sharjah-based orthopaedic surgeon promises just that. “A individual can add six more inches to his height via this purely cosmetic surgery,” says Dr Shoiab Farooq, a specialist Orthopaedic Surgeon at Al Zahra Hospital in Sharjah. And because the saying goes, beauty comes at a cost. The lengthening process is painful, time consuming and costly also. “A human bone grows 1 millimetre each day,” says the doctor. “So if we want inches, we need time.” The application of
heel lifts is a painless and immediate solution.
Sawing and cutting via the outer cortex from the bone and making a fracture-like state of the leg, the procedure consists of stretching from the bone to provide it space to grow. The stretched bones are then held by a wired exterior frame that's kept in location till the new bone grows, sometimes even for up to 4 months. A patient can move about inside days following the surgery though using the frames attached.
To achieve the entire of six inches, a total of four surgeries on each the legs are needed,” says Dr Shoaib. Every surgery provides a length of about two and two and half inches. “The surgeries need to be carried out below the knees also as on the thigh bones of every leg.” So why would people wish to mess with nature? “For boys much less than five feet 6 or girls shorter than five feet, it is a psychological problem. In some cases, models need such surgeries simply because they're just a couple of inches brief of the required height,” says the doctor.
Leg-lengthening was initial performed in the 1950s in the former Soviet Union, after which in China, but with sometimes catastrophic outcomes. The surgery is non-invasive and is really a new technological advancement in orthopaedic corrective surgeries. A similar technique has been developed by a Chinese doctor Bai Helong who has currently given the gift of height to about 3,000 patients. However, Dr Shoaib has just moved to the UAE from Saudi Arabia and is awaiting a management choice on fixing a cost for the surgery. “The metal frames and osigraft, a granular powder protein that fills the space whilst the bone grows to stop infection are both expensive,” says the surgeon who has carried out a number of such surgeries within the UK.
A post operative cosmetic surgery to remove the scars may also be required depending on the length needed. “We occasionally combine the exterior frame and rod for the treatment and sometimes we have to fix internal nails to hold the bone with each other,” he explains. “If the length is long, then we require the frame to stay in longer and this might leave scars that require a cosmetic repair,” he adds. The surgeon, however, says that because the procedure is largely non-invasive, the danger of infection is low. Patients under treatment need relaxing and stretching exercises to move their immobile muscles. The surgeon has utilized the same technique to right numerous birth and development deformities also give a lease at life to accident victims.
