Another lengthening?

Ok so the title may have been a little clickbait – sorry 😂 – TBH Dr. Standard and I did talk about it (I’ll get to that later)

You probably already know but I was in Baltimore last week. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Dr. Standard and I’ve had a few things that I have been wanting to discuss with him in person – it was also Save-A-Limb weekend.

The appointment went great. One of my main reasons for this appointment was because I turn 25 in a couple of months which means I only have one year left on my dad’s insurance plan – so if any tweaks need to made I would like to do it sooner rather than later (for insurance and age reason).

BURNING QUESTION – am I doing another lengthening? No, I’m (probably) not. However, we did discuss it and I’ll be honest I have been thinking about it. It wouldn’t be a full lengthening, just a little over an inch and only in my tibias. In hindsight, I’m most likely not going to do it but if I did it could be done internally.

Another thing we discussed was my gait. My gait is a sensitive subject for me. I have been working SO HARD on it for almost four years now. You might not know it but it has improved. In summer 2014 I did what they call “boot camp” at RIAO – 5 days a week of intensive physical therapy. At the end of the summer, we narrowed down my gait issue to my hips. Turns out that I hardly had a trochanter on either side.

The trochanter is an anatomical portion of the femur near its joint with the hip bone. In humans and most mammals the trochanters serve as important muscle attachment sites. Humans are known to have three trochanters, though the anatomic “normal” includes only the greater and lesser trochanters.

I basically had no femoral neck on either side. This is actually very common with achondroplasia but it goes unnoticed due to the bowing of the legs. One of the muscles attachments is the gluteus medius. Because of the anatomy of my hips, I was never working this muscle correctly. This resulted in having a trochanter transfer surgery. Basically, Dr. Standard went in and made me a femoral neck that would attach the muscle(s) to the right areas and work correctly. Today, my right gluteus medius is still very weak as resulted by a gait study.

On a lighter note, my side-to-side gait has improved and most of the issue is in my hips so that is an improvement. Dr. Standard was pleased with all of the strength I have gained from Pure Barre and wants me to continue as well as go to physical therapy twice a week for dry needling with electrical muscle stim on the gluteus medius.

On Saturday, there was a preview event for the new spring Save-A-Limb event happening in May 2019. You can see more from this weekend on my Facebook and Instagram 🙂