Standing five foot six inches tall he was well within the boundaries of normal, but in his mind’s eye, the New Yorker, who wants to be known only as Apotheosis, saw himself in a different light, as a statuesque six foot.
Desperate to become the man he believed he should be, the determined 37-year-old turned to extreme measures, undergoing excruciating, costly surgery.
The procedure, in which both legs are broken and then gradually stretched, bears more than a little likeness to medieval torture, but the courageous patient has now achieved a remarkable six inches of additional height.
Apotheosis explained that he realised that the world looked at him in a specific way but that he didn’t look at himself in that certain way.
He said that he wanted the way he felt about himself and the way the world felt about him to be similar and that in some cultures, the painful and costly procedure is seen as an investment in the end.
The trend for limb lengthening surgery swept China where minimum heights are usually mentioned in personal adverts and job advertisements as the nation opened up to the West a decade ago. To enter the foreign service, men are required to be at least five foot seven, but the controversial surgery was outlawed in 2006 after a series of botched jobs.
Meanwhile, a growing number of men are seeking limb lengthening procedures in the United States.
Florida-based orthopaedic surgeon Dr Dror Paley is one of the few US medics to have completed the cosmetic procedure.
The surgeon, who works at the Paley Institute at St Mary’s Medical Centre in West Palm Beach, last year performed 650 leg lengthening surgeries, most but not all to remedy deformities.
Dr Paley said the majority who come for cosmetic limb lengthening have what they call, height dysphoria, and that they’re dissatisfied with their height.
He said it’s one of the few psychologic psychiatric disorders that you can fix with the knife.
The surgery isn’t for the faint-hearted. The leg bone is broken in two. The doctor then implants a state-of-the-art telescopic rod into the cartilage of the bone which then pulls it apart very slowly, one millimetre a day.
The new living bone grows along it to fill the void and muscles, nerves, the Growth: The most hi-tech devices can extend the legs by inches, arteries and the skin, also renew themselves.
The cost is a prohibitive $85,000 and takes at least three months to complete, and gruelling physical therapy is necessary.
Apotheosis journeyed to Germany for his surgery and his first generation implants that were extended by the body’s movement rather than remote control.
He’s still recovering and is hesitant to speak too soon of success, and he told ABC News that he was still lengthening right now and there could be further difficulties and that he didn’t want to speak about it successfully until it’s been successful.
He said on makemetaller.org a candid internet discussion board for those contemplating surgery he advises that he’s not telling anyone they should do this surgery, but he’s laying out his experiences and the risks that he’s taken and the success that he’s had and to let people make their own decision, but he said that he already feels like a new man.
He said that he walks down the street a different person perceived differently by the world for the rest of his life and that he’s who he wants to be now.
The online nickname Apotheosis comes from the Greek to become godlike, in the sense of being the best you can be.
I’m sure that many of us would like to be taller or even shorter than we are, but isn’t surgery to change our appearance a step too far?
There are so many things that can go wrong with surgery, and it should maybe be left for those people who are genuinely ill, not people wanting to alter their appearance, but then where there’s a demand, there’s a market, but then I suppose it’s his money, his body, his choice, although he could have saved himself all that pain and effort by just standing on a box when he looked in the mirror.
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