At just over 5ft 7in, few people would
have described Chris Johnson as short. But despite being just 2in under
the average UK height for a man, the 25-year-old was so insecure about
his stature that he wore built-up shoes.Then, two years ago, he discovered that cosmetic surgery could make his legs longer and give him the extra height he craved. The operation cost £34,000 but Chris saved up for it, and was also helped by his parents.
In September last year, a surgeon performed the complex and painful operation to make him two-and-a-half inches taller. Chris returned home three months later but the drawback – not that he sees it as such – is he will be on crutches until the end of this month, and won’t walk normally until March.
‘I knew I had to do it,’ says Chris, who finished university in last summer. ‘It has taken away that insecurity. I don’t worry about my height now.’
The controversial surgery was carried out by Dr Jean-Marc Guichet, 50, the foremost expert in this procedure, at his clinic in Marseilles.
Leg-lengthening surgery used to be carried out only on people who had limbs of unequal length or for correcting dwarfism – short stature caused by a medical condition. But an increasing number of people are having the operation for cosmetic reasons.
‘The requests have trebled in the past ten years,’ says Dr Guichet.
The surgery is not for the faint-hearted. Patients have to prepare physically by building up muscle strength in their legs.
Dr Guichet says he turns away ‘70 to 80 per cent’ of applicants. ‘I will only do it if I am sure that the patient really wants it, will make a complete recovery and regain all functions. Patients must be fit and healthy with strong bones and be seriously committed to the operation.’
Dr Guichet believes the surgery is safe and will become as accepted as cosmetic breast augmentation. ‘Height is not a problem for all short people but some suffer low self-esteem and this affects their life,’ he says.
The surgery is not for the faint-hearted. Patients have to prepare physically by building up muscle strength in their legs
Those accepted for the operation,
which lasts between four and six hours, can gain up to 6in in height (a
maximum of 4in in a single operation) but the average increase is
two-and-a-half inches. Almost all patients are in their 20s and 30s. And
a third are women, many of whom want to be taller to pursue a career as
a model, or because they say being under 5ft means they are ‘treated
like children’.During the operation, a hole is drilled through the centre of the thigh bone from the top. A surgical saw is inserted through the same incision and used to cut the bone in two at the middle of the thigh. An 11in telescopic stainless-steel rod is inserted vertically into the channel drilled in the leg bone and secured using screws.
Stretch: An X-ray of the operation shows how the stainless steel rods are kept in place
The leg is elongated by 0.4in during the surgical procedure and the patient does 15 ‘clicks’ backwards and forwards each day to give daily growth of 0.04in. After two months, the leg grows by two-and-a-half inches. The extra height is determined ‘not by what the patient wants but what the body can accept’, according to Dr Guichet.
After the post-operative pain, patients also suffer from the ‘clicking’ procedure and discomfort caused by the remodelling of muscles and tendons. Dr Guichet says: ‘The pain decreases during the recovery but while some patients rank it at one out of ten, others put it as high as eight out of ten.’
Patients begin cycling and stretching exercises the day after surgery. They walk with a frame and switch to crutches after two to four weeks. The fittest patients can be walking normally after four months.
Chris says it took two weeks to find the ‘perfect position’ for the clicks and after that he felt little pain. He also found the post-op exercises easy. ‘Motion is coming back and I am walking for an hour a day with crutches.’
The bone takes up to eight months to grow and fill the gap, or ‘fuse’, and at this point many patients can resume all normal activities, including sports. The screws are removed in a second operation after about 18 months.
However, orthopaedic surgeon Brett Rocos urges caution. ‘Having one leg much shorter than the other is disabling and in that situation it is worth considering surgery. But this is a major operation, with a high risk of complications.
Thomas with his wife Maggie, who said she would not have dated him before the surgery
But Thomas Keeper, 36, disagrees. A Canadian estate agent, he was 5ft 6in and had the operation two years ago to make him 5ft 10in. After his operation, he met Maggie, 26, who is 5ft 8in, via an internet dating site. By the time they met in person, he was 2in taller than her. They are now married and Maggie gave birth to their first child before Christmas.
‘When I told my wife about the operation she said she would never have been interested in a guy shorter than her,’ says Thomas.
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