How long does bone lengthening take?
The Process of Limb Lengthening Limb lengthening duration is variable and dependent on many factors. Generally, a bone lengthening requires wearing the external fixator four to six months; four to six weeks for correction, and three to four times that for bone maturation. Limb lengthening and deformity correction is not a procedure, rather it can be considered a process, occurring and changing over weeks and months. Using external fixation as a method of treatment requires a surgeon with a certain personality, one willing to invest the planning and preoperative education time, patience in the operating room, and persistent postoperative care. It requires a special patient s personality, too, a willingness to focus attention to the details of physical therapy and functional use of the limb while the correction is occurring. Patients with severe problems have often endured long, painful and unsuccessful treatment by the time they need to consider a correction such as bone lengthening, st
