Listen to the series<\/a><\/p>\nWhat happens when the internet tells you what’s wrong with you and sells you the solution?<\/p>\n
“In all the testimonials, it feels like you just have to pay them [and your height is fixed],” Jack says.<\/p>\n
Some Turkish clinics are offering the procedure for $35,000. This is using an older method, where pins stick out of the leg for months as an external mechanism extends the bone.<\/p>\n
Other clinics charge six figures for all-inclusive packages, including surgery, hotels, physio, transfers and even day tours of Istanbul’s tourist sites.<\/p>\n
Jack figured out he could afford some of the Turkish clinics. He put together a list, and was close to booking a flight to go to Istanbul to check out their services in person.<\/p>\n
But before that happened, he stumbled across an influential figure in the leg-lengthening world, Victor Egonu.<\/p>\n
Leg-lengthening patient becomes influencer<\/p>\n
Mr Egonu underwent limb-lengthening in one of his tibias 13 years ago to fix a stunted leg that was injured in a roller skating accident as a child.<\/p>\n
He posted about the experience on Instagram in 2017 and included the hashtag #precice to reference a specific nail used to lengthen bones.<\/p>\n
Almost overnight, people started flooding his DMs asking questions and it quickly dawned on him that people believed his medical surgery could solve their height insecurities.<\/p>\n
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Victor had leg-lengthening surgery on one leg to fix an old injury. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“I was a little stunned,” Mr Egonu says.<\/p>\n
“I was a little shocked. I wasn’t judgemental. I was curious. Why would somebody who’s 5’7″ want to break perfectly good legs [and] go through months, or a whole year, of pain and sacrifice to gain a few inches?”<\/p>\n
These days, he makes video explainers about the surgery on YouTube under the name Cyborg4Life, a reference to the metal rod once implanted in his leg to make it longer.<\/p>\n
Mr Egonu also charges people for consultations about the surgery, although he describes Cyborg4Life as a “part-time hobby” that sits along his work as a healthcare consultant.<\/p>\n
“This industry of limb-lengthening isn’t all sunshine and rainbows,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I do see myself as this watchdog because I want to keep patients safe.”<\/p>\n
‘You’re being reborn into what you really see yourself as’<\/p>\n
Today, Mr Egonu also moderates online platforms for the community, including a Facebook group and an encrypted Discord chat with almost 2,000 members.<\/p>\n
The Discord’s logo is a black and white femur bone.<\/p>\n
Its members often have usernames that include numbers. As people on different sides of the world live chat, phrases like “170cm to 176cm soon” or “+31mm femurs” scroll past, referencing the heights people want to grow or they say they are already gaining.<\/p>\n
Do you know more? Contact Background Briefing at background.briefing@abc.net.au<\/p>\n
Mr Egonu says these numbers are “a badge of honour”.<\/p>\n
“You’re transforming yourself. You’re being reborn into what you really see yourself as,” he says.<\/p>\n
It is mostly men in this Discord chat. Mr Egonu thinks there is a spectrum of heights represented, and that many seeking the surgery could be classified as “average” height.<\/p>\n
“They just don’t wanna be average. They wanna be above average,” he says.<\/p>\n
“They want to kind of feel empowered and dominant in this world.”<\/p>\n
The daily chatter includes talk about surgeons, debates about which nails are best for lengthening, and even updates and photos from people who are midway through the surgery.<\/p>\n
They even gossip about celebrities they think have undergone height surgery.<\/p>\n
“The set of fit-bone nails together costs $25,000,” one user recently posted.<\/p>\n
“Graduated from walker to walkin[g]. Just took a tour today. No assistance,” another, midway through the surgery, wrote.<\/p>\n
People also share their fears and negative reviews about clinics.<\/p>\n
“I worry about the cardiovascular system and how it’s affected by LL (leg-lengthening),” another writes.<\/p>\n
There is also chat about dating, their “body count” of sexual partners, photos of people they think are sexually attractive, even a YouTube video discussing what height women prefer.<\/p>\n
Concerns online forums coopted by ‘manosphere’<\/p>\n
Jack says joining the Discord made him more sure that he wanted this surgery.<\/p>\n
Another Discord member, who did not want to be identified, said online communities had been “extremely useful” for them while researching height surgery.<\/p>\n
“They offer a forum where questions can be asked and answered,” he says.<\/p>\n
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First-hand accounts of what recovery is like after the surgery can be found all over social media.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n
This person has since gone through with the surgery and documented it with photos and updates on Discord.<\/p>\n
“I want people to get more realistic expectations from the surgery. It will help people better understand everyday challenges and pain from the surgery,” he says.<\/p>\n
However, he is concerned these spaces could get coopted by the “Manosphere”, a corner of the internet where men claim to address their struggles but often promote misogyny and, according to a United Nations report, “aggressive definitions of what it means to be a man”.<\/p>\n
Mr Egonu defends the online spaces he moderates, and says they give people a space to talk “patient to patient” away from the influence of clinics.<\/p>\n
He says he has heard of people leaving the online community because it exacerbates their height concerns, and that he looks out for members who appear too young or unwell.<\/p>\n
Beth O’Gorman, an Australian clinical psychologist and associate research fellow at Deakin University’s School of Medicine who has researched the experiences of men under about 170cm on the online forum Reddit, says these sorts of spaces dedicated to height surgery are “massively” understudied.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think we know enough,” Dr O’Gorman says.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s concerning if [these forums] aren’t moderated by a medical professional.<\/p>\n
“I think anyone going on to these forums potentially needs to be on the lookout about how accurate that information is.<\/p>\n
“It really in no way should be replacing getting legitimate medical advice.”<\/p>\n
Dr O’Gorman thinks people are turning to these forums with legitimate grievances. She urges people to think about their role in reinforcing stereotypes and gender roles.<\/p>\n
“There is evidence that tall men experience a variety of advantages,” she argues.<\/p>\n
“Height is really often used as a signifier or a cue to masculine status, especially in Western cultures.<\/p>\n
“I think we are potentially particularly casual about making jokes at the expense of short-statured men.”<\/p>\n
As he was grappling with height insecurity, Jack’s social media algorithm flooded him with unhelpful content, such as jokes about women wanting a six-foot man in finance.<\/p>\n
“It’s people all mocking short kings,” he says.<\/p>\n
Background Briefing has spoken to several Australians who had the surgery and are worried about being stigmatised, either by their own parents or the wider community.<\/p>\n
‘You’re only seeing the good news stories on these websites’<\/p>\n
It is unclear how many Australians are electing to get this surgery every year, and how many are coming home from this form of cosmetic medical tourism with issues.<\/p>\n
Melbourne-based surgeon Stewart Morrison performs limb-lengthening surgery. Most of the time, for medical reasons, but he occasionally accepts cosmetic patients.<\/p>\n
Dr Morrison says he has also seen about 10 patients in recent years with complications from height surgery in Turkiye and India.<\/p>\n
One case was a woman who had her legs lengthened by 5cm and then had one of her legs slowly bend at a 30-degree angle.<\/p>\n
“That was a complex situation, because that required secondary surgery to correct that, which was a lot to sort out back here in Australia,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I think she felt pretty silly. She was a high-functioning professional, very used to being in control of everything with good amounts of information.<\/p>\n
“And in this case, it became clear that [the] doctors she’d been talking to hadn’t done their duty, hadn’t explained to her the ins and outs of the surgery.”<\/p>\n
He has also heard of Australians who have come home with bone infection. In those cases, he says, those patients have “ended up shorter than they originally started”.<\/p>\n
Dr Morrison urges anybody considering this surgery to talk to a surgeon in Australia first, and to not take patient testimonials on TikTok or YouTube at face value.<\/p>\n
“You’re only seeing the good news stories on these websites,” Dr Morrison says.<\/p>\n
“That differs from what’s a lot more boring: talking about complication percentages and rates.”<\/p>\n
Finding reliable data about the long-term impacts of this surgery is also difficult.<\/p>\n
One recent study that looked at the outcomes of 760 “aesthetic lower limb-lengthening” patients found they gained an average of 6.7cm in height, and their satisfaction ranged from “88.8 to 98 per cent”.<\/p>\n
It found most resumed “normal activities” afterwards, but common complications included bone healing issues, infection and joint deformities.<\/p>\n
Hiding the surgery from loved ones<\/p>\n
As he was going down the rabbit hole, Jack figured out his family did not support the surgery and thought it sounded “barbaric”.<\/p>\n
“They’re telling me to work on my confidence instead,” he says.<\/p>\n
He plans to go ahead with the surgery anyway, without telling his family.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Jack isn’t alone in not wanting to tell his family about undergoing the surgery. \u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Faced with resistance, Mr Egonu finds many people end up doing the surgery “solo”.<\/p>\n
“They don’t want to tell anybody,” he says.<\/p>\n
“They don’t want to tell their family, their friends, sometimes not even their partner.”<\/p>\n
Going off for this extensive surgery for months without telling your loved ones requires imagination, especially if you come back on crutches or in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Cover stories include skiing and surfing accidents through to non-elective knee surgery, Mr Egonu says.<\/p>\n
Jack says he can get away with not telling his family because they live overseas. He will figure out a cover story later, he says.<\/p>\n
Jack initially wanted to fly to T\u00fcrkiye for the surgery, but says a slew of negative reviews about some clinics put him off.<\/p>\n
Instead, he is saving up for a $110,000, all-inclusive, leg-lengthening package in South Africa.<\/p>\n
He thinks he can get the cash together in six months.<\/p>\n
Jack recently saw a GP and a new psychiatrist who helped get him on anti-depression medication, and it is working.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I’m living a normal life again,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I’m no longer in a depressive state, and I don’t think about my height as much. I even go out now without worrying about it.”<\/p>\n
He has also deleted his social media apps and is taking time off from his once constant research into limb-lengthening.<\/p>\n
“This is my conscious decision to stay away from this type of content so that I can feel better,” he says.<\/p>\n
“Currently, I’m in a state [where] I can [make] a logical decision, not [an] emotional decision.<\/p>\n
“But, in the back of my mind, I’m still saving for the surgery.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is an online world that few would find unless they were looking for it. Across social media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[171407,64,63,171408,79041,105671,134,171406,171404,171403,171409,171411,171410,3017,30623,514,171405],"class_list":["post-299899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aesthics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-background-breifing","tag-cosmetic-surgery","tag-discord","tag-entertainment","tag-height","tag-height-disphoria","tag-leg-lengthening","tag-limb-lengthening","tag-looks-maxxing","tag-manosphere","tag-men","tag-mens-health","tag-mental-health","tag-short-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}