The pandemic has affected many of our habits and behaviors, but in times of zoom, it is perhaps one of the most curious to go under the cosmetic surgeon’s knife, nothing less than adding a few centimeters to your height. Quite a few engineers in Silicon Valley seem to have done this.
Job centers have different rhythms when it comes to getting their employees back to work. From those who never had the opportunity to work from home because the nature of their work prevented it, to those who continue to work in pajama pants today.
But we spare these two extremes Perhaps many were surprised that their colleagues had changed somewhat. In Silicon Valley, it seems that many have returned to the surgery a few centimeters taller: this type of surgery has grown significantly during the pandemic, or so says Kevin Debiparshad, a surgeon who operates in the US state of Nevada. and which ensures that one of the most common profiles among its clients is an engineer from ‘big tech’.
The operation is simple on paper, but drastic: it requires breaking both femurs of the candidate. During the operation, a metal structure is inserted and nailed to the bone. After this operation, thanks to the magnetic control system, the nails gradually move away, at a rate of one millimeter per day.
This phase lasts three months. The bone regenerates, filling the gap left by the fracture and displacement of the ends of the bone. The process may take several more months. in which the patient’s new bone will not be completely solidified.
The first drawback may be the long recovery time, but those who want to gain a few centimeters will have to expect some discomfort. The first is that the result may seem a little strange. All the height is gained in the legs, so the proportions of the body change.
The process is painful, affecting not only the bones, but also requiring the nerves and muscles to adjust to the new length. This pain can be intense. Debiparshad also warns that this can lead to some loss of agility. So it might not be a great idea for someone who is inches away from making a basketball team.
And of course the price. The process can cost between $70,000 and $150,000, depending on how many inches the patient wants to add. The range is between 7.6 and 15.2 centimeters. To achieve these more than 15 centimeters, the operations also touch the tibia of the patients.
Some financial institutions have seen the business and offer installment payments, around $1,200 per month, but in general the prices are quite limiting to the client profile (wide within this limitation).
Height enhancement surgeries are particularly (though not exclusively) sought after by men. The stigma of cosmetic surgery is falling, and more so for men. In Spain only 16.6% of the nearly 400,000 cosmetic surgeries performed each year They are performed on male patients according to the Spanish Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery.
Silicon Valley seemed to have absorbed this cosmetic surgery trend even before the pandemic, although on that occasion the news referred to minor interventions such as laser treatment or classic botox.
However, we cannot talk about the disappearance of the stigma: at least in the case of height increase surgery they prefer to hide the operation, at least outside her innermost circles. In any case, aesthetic stigma seems to prevail for many.
Like many other cosmetic surgeries, this intervention has its origins in reconstructive surgery. Gavriil Ilizarov was a Soviet doctor who in 1951 developed a system for applying bone lengthening (bone lengthening) to the legs.
The aim was to treat trauma, congenital differences in leg length and other possible disorders, but today it is also used to make us grow a few centimeters.
At first glance, Ilizarov’s apparatus has little in common with its modern version. In its old version, the mechanism consisted of a scaffold-like structure which surrounded that end. The system applied to aesthetic femoral operations is much less sophisticated, visible only on X-ray.
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Image | Anna Švetsová