- Ibrahim Algan paid $26,850 for surgery to lengthen his legs.
- The 30-year-old told Insider he hated being short. “When you go short, you start 1-0.”
- He gained almost 5 inches and says he is more confident and even changed his career as a result.
As a school counsellor, Ibrahim Alghan’s job was to help young people solve their problems. Still, he couldn’t solve his own: a serious size complex.
Algan, 30, is from the city of Adana in southern Turkey. He was 5ft 2in tall and had strong feelings about his height.
“If you’re shorter, people don’t take you as seriously as a tall person,” he told Insider. He said he felt he was not confident enough to help students at his school.
“I firmly believe that charisma is one of the inescapable characteristics of leadership,” he said. “When you go short, you start 1-0.”
Alğan said his co-workers make jokes about his height at least once a week. He said he felt the taller people around him were more popular and had more opportunities. “They were more advantageous both in private relationships and in recruiting,” he said.
He said he never forgot his first girlfriend told him she wished he was taller, and said derogatory comments throughout his life “always stuck” like ” a wound in me”.
So he researched methods that claim to help a person grow taller. He took powders and pills to increase his height. He played basketball, swam and jumped.
“I used to hang from a bar a few minutes before falling asleep almost every night,” he said. “I used reflexology insoles which claimed to stimulate size increase.”
Nothing worked except hidden heel shoes which made him up to 3 inches taller. But they weren’t enough. “It was like a false dream,” he said. Every time I took off my shoes, I faced reality again.
“My obsession was growing every day.”
“My Life Goal”
Algan underwent her first operation in February 2015.
Courtesy of Wannabetaller
After two rounds of leg-lengthening surgery, Algan added 5 inches to her height.
He didn’t tell anyone about his first operation, in February 2015, thinking they wouldn’t understand.
It made him 2.4 inches taller. When people noticed him, he said he had a bone deformity and needed surgery to restore it.
He underwent a second operation in March 2020 which added an additional 2.4 inches to his height.
The operation changed his outlook so much that he quit his job as a counselor and founded his own clinic based in Turkey which offers leg lengthening surgery. He is the chief coordinator and his team is mostly made up of other people who have had the surgery.
“I realized that there are a lot of people who want to have this surgery in Turkey, but not many options to consult or even get more information about the limb and leg lengthening process,” said he declared.
His clinic, Wanna Be Taller, charges between $70,000 and $150,000 depending on whether the patient wants to grow 3, 4, 5 or 6 inches.
He said he had no thoughts of running a leg-lengthening business until he had surgery. “My only goal – I might even call it my life’s goal – was to grow.”
A new group of patients
Leg lengthening surgery has been a hot topic in recent months. It was originally used to treat people with legs of different lengths, but is now used by patients who wish to grow taller.
Kevin Debiparshad, a Harvard-trained surgeon known as one of the world’s leading limb and leg lengthening surgeons, said the procedure involves cutting the bones of the leg – either the femur (the bone of the upper leg) or the tibia (the lower leg bone).
“I make four to six tiny little incisions in the leg, creating a window to access the hollow part of the bone, where I insert a device that responds to an external remote that the patient will control at home,” Debiparshad m ‘said.
The remote control is used by the patient to increase their height by 1 millimeter per day after surgery, in a generally painless process.
He told Insider that increased media coverage and reduced stigma around cosmetic procedures has opened up the procedure to a new group of patients.
Traditionally, the majority of my patients have been younger, short-lived men looking to increase their height. However, we see a lot of older patients, people of average height, female patients, and even those looking for reduction surgery. of size. he said. This latter group includes people who are transitioning and want their bodies to better align with how they perceive themselves.
“Now I can see myself as a real adult”
Algan was 5ft 2in before his leg lengthening surgery.
Courtesy of Wannabetaller.
Algan said his life had changed “dramatically” since he got older.
“When I put on a costume I felt like a kid, but now I can see myself as a real adult,” he said. “I hear the phrase ‘this outfit looks good on you’ more, and it positively affects me in many aspects of my life.”
He likes not having to look up when talking to people, and it allows him “to think healthier and therefore make better decisions”.
He said his new job running the clinic had similarities to his old role as a counsellor: “I support people who have psychological difficulties growing up.”
“People don’t joke about my height anymore,” he said. “As a leader, I don’t think there is anything more valuable than the self-confidence I have now.”
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