“I’m tired of people telling me I’m too short to play a leading role.” The words are from actor and comedian Rich Rotella and he picked them up Magazine People. In the United States, his case became very famous when he became, at the age of 38, the first public figure to undergo one of the most controversial, unknown and questioned operations in recent medicine: the so-called height elongation surgery. I mean. He is preparing a documentary that will be published in the coming months about his experience undergoing leg lengthening surgery to grow three inches.
During the interviews he has given to various media outlets, he explains that it was something he had always wanted. “I think anyone taller than 5’1″ might have a hard time understanding why someone would willingly break their legs to be taller.” Rotella began looking for a permanent solution in 2020 after walking around with elevators in his shoes for decades. He found the YouTube channel Cyborg4life, where a man named Victor Egonu explains how he underwent this procedure. Some of his videos reach 150,000 views. He decided to send her a message in hopes of collaborating on a documentary about his experience. They are in it.
Rotella chose Dr. Dror Paley, from the Orthopedic & Spine Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida, who after performing more than 25,000 operations of this type gave him confidence. His operation cost 100,000 euros and increased his height by seven centimeters. He went from measuring 1.65 to 1.72 meters. Along the way, he spent more than half a year convalescing and broke both of his legs. For five years, the Paley method has also existed in Spain.
Dozens of patients, the vast majority men between 20 and 45 years old who measure between 1.50 and 1.70, write desperately to Dr. Javier Downey every day. They want to be taller. Downey is a specialist in Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology, and has set up the Downey Institute in Seville. There the main operation is to increase height. “Discover how you can be 16 centimeters taller,” reads on their website.
In this you can also read the comments of men who do not mind breaking the bones in their legs in order to achieve their dream: gaining a few centimeters in height. “I would like to undergo this surgery, because I am not satisfied, since I am 1.45 meters tall and this affects my emotions. “Everyone makes fun of me.” The doctor explains to ICON that it is a very simple issue: “Short men suffer from low self-esteem. A man always wants to be taller than his wife” (although that commonplace has been overcome for years). Downey decided to open the clinic in Spain in 2019 after training in the United States and seeing the success of this procedure there. “I decided to bet on health tourism, which is now booming. Many people come from abroad to be treated here, and high-altitude cosmetic surgery was not going to be any less,” he says.
How much do you want to measure?
Surgery is not new: the intervention to increase height has been practiced for decades, but always in cases of people who suffer from diseases such as achondroplasia, poliomelitis or who have suffered accidents. What is relatively new is the willingness to undergo one of the hardest surgeries and the longest convalescence without there being an illness that indicates it, but simply a complex, the same one that can lead to growing hair, increasing the breast or lengthening penis.
Dr. Arnal has seen how more and more patients in his hospital in Madrid are asking about this surgery. “It is booming, more and more people without any type of pathology are interested in having this operation simply to increase their height”
Treatment begins with a question: How much do you want to measure? Once resolved, the patient has to undergo a psychological evaluation. “There are times when surgery can be very stressful, and before undergoing it they have to know what they are going to face and have great psychological support,” explains Downey.
Every centimeter extends convalescence by a month. “During convalescence the patient cannot walk or put his foot down. “Complete rest,” explains the doctor. The price of the surgery ranges from 50,000 euros to 200,000, depending on the increase in height. For example, a person who wants to grow 16 centimeters will have to undergo two interventions in an average time of two years and will pay about 200,000 euros at the Downey Institute. “It is a surgery within the reach of very few,” acknowledges the specialist. “We get asked a lot about the intervention, but almost no one has the resources to pay for it.” In the last year, the doctor has performed four operations of this type.
The surgery primarily involves breaking the bones in the legs. “An electromagnetic lengthening nail is inserted into the femur. Bones are hollow tubes, so you have to go through the bone. The bone is then cut and the nail is inserted, which is fixed near the knee and hip with two screws. Once the nail is fixed, a week later the lengthening begins with a machine that emits electromagnetic waves that cause the screw to unscrew and increase its length,” explains the doctor. Once the desired length is reached, the bone begins to be glued.
Until now it was only performed in Spain to correct bone deformities, never for aesthetic purposes. The specialist in Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology and Member of the European Board of Orthopedic Surgery, Juan Arnal, explains: “It is very uncommon to perform it on both legs. It is usually performed to correct lower limb dysmetria, which means that the patient has one leg longer than the other when the hip is at the same level.”
However, in the United States this procedure has entered the controversial category of cosmetic surgery and the fever to gain a few extra centimeters is reaching Europe. Arnal has seen how more and more patients at her hospital in Madrid are asking about this surgery. “It is booming, more and more people without any type of pathology are interested in having this operation simply to increase their height,” she says.
However, it stands out that it is hardly done in Europe. “If a person has short stature, we must study whether he or she first has a deficiency in some hormone or whether it can be treated in a less aggressive way,” he says. “It is a very aggressive process, a lot of blood is lost. There are many dangers with the bones, and the fractures can not stick together correctly, which can lead to a serious problem,” explains Arnal.
For anesthetist David Callejo, this surgery is nothing new. “Bone lengthening has been done for a long time, but now people are considering it aesthetically. The procedure with magnetic nails has become easier, and beauty standards are increasingly putting more pressure on men and their height.”
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