Poll Would you get your legs surgically lengthened to become taller if you had the time and money? (25 votes)
So there is this surgery that you can get to make you taller. Basically they slice your leg bones in half and gradually stretch them (1 mm per day) over the period of months until you get a few inches taller, and when you reach the length gained that you're satisfied with they stop stretching you and you have to heal over the period of months to a year before you can run and return to sports again. You can either do it with external devices that are like big cages around your legs with pins and wires sticking through your leg bones, like so:
Or with internal devices that are more comfortable, like so:
In the USA, the procedure can cost up to $100,000 USD although you can get it in cheaper countries like China or India for between $10,000 - $50,000 USD. The surgery is very painful and complications include muscle tightness, joint stiffness, possible premature arthritis, nerve distruction causing chronic numbness or pain, pulmonary embolism that can cause death (embolism is where fat from your bone gets into your blood stream and into your lungs), and even bilateral amputation if your doctor screws up. However, the benefit with the surgery is that once you're done you have a permanent height gain, If you do it in both segments of your limbs you can get between 5 and 6 inches taller, meaning a guy who is 5'5 can potentially reach 5'11. Some of the crazy ones do even more. There was a guy in New York who went from 5'6 inches tall to 6'2 inches tall.
Here's a video describing the procedure and one below it actually showing what it looks like. Looks scary as hell.
But for the benefit of permanent added height, would you risk the procedure? There are whole forums about this with a community of people who save up their money and go through this and it got me thinking that I'd love to go from 5'8 to 5'10 or even higher. You can read diaries of patients doing this now even. Would I do it if I had the time and money? I think so. Would you?
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