What would you do if you could make yourself taller?
Height has its perks. You might become a more formidable defender in your weekly pickup basketball game. Or look a smidge more like a model. You could finally reach that last, elusive item on the top shelf at the grocery store.
As it happens, some people will go to great lengths to gain a few inches.
Limb-lengthening surgery, or cosmetic stature lengthening as some surgeons call it, is growing in popularity. That’s despite the procedure being excruciating, requiring heavy medication, a long recovery and intense physical therapy.
Even when the surgery succeeds, patients can end up with an altered gait, stiffness or chronic nerve damage. Muscles and nerves can stretch farther than they should. Infection is a risk.
Here’s how the surgery works, according to an anatomy professor from the University of Bristol: Surgeons cut through either the femur (that’s the thigh bone) or the tibia (your shin bone). Telescopic rods are placed inside the bone, where they are ever-so-slowly pulled apart over time by external magnetic controls.
The surgery can help a patient “grow” about 3 inches in stature. Some organizations tout bigger gains, but each fraction of an inch brings more risk.
The surgery was devised in the 1950s by a Soviet orthopaedic surgeon to correct badly healed fractures and congenital deformities, While more people are having the procedure, it is not yet common. Some clinics in the U.S. and South Korea perform the surgery 200 times a year.
Surgeons report mostly younger men seeking out the surgery.
For now, there remains little consensus among doctors about the procedure. And little data to show whether patients are truly happier, when all is said and done.
