Yeferson Cossio, 29, had a goal: to reach 6 feet tall.
For this, the influencer Colombian paid $175,000 to undergo a leg lengthening operation that would take him from 5 feet and 8 inches to his dream height.
The procedure, which involves breaking his legs to implant metal rods that little by little stretch his lower extremities – he now claims – has left him with terrible and constant pain, reported the Daily Mail.
Cossio has had the rods in his legs for four months, and they must be lengthened 0.04 inches (one millimeter) daily using a remote control.
According to Cossio, as the rods stretch your bones to extend the length of his legs, the pain is so terrible that sometimes he thinks he is going to faint.
In a publication on social networks, Cossio posted a photo in which it is observed the metals that are inserted in the legs.
The young man told the newspaper that this situation barely allows him to sleep two hours at night, at most.
“I normally sleep between four and six hours a day. But in the last 11 or 12 days, I’ve only been able to sleep for about two hours at most. And that is constantly interrupted by periods of 15 to 20 minutes because of the pain in my legs.” , Cossio said, quoted by the Daily Mail.
“Maybe there will come a time when my body breaks down and I can’t handle the pain or anything anymore,” he added.
The young man told the newspaper that he had paid 200 and 700 million Colombian pesos, the equivalent of 50,000 to 175,000 dollars in a medical center in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Leg lengthening is an intense and expensive process that has become more popular and accepted in the last five years, said Dr. Shahab Mahboubian, who works as a surgeon at the Height Lengthening Institute in Burbank, California.
Despite being an expensive surgery, the total of these procedures has doubled in recent yearsindicated the Daily Mail.
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“There are men who are 60 or 65 years old who come to see me to undergo the intervention because this doesn’t stop. The jokes about men who are ‘short’ don’t stop and (that’s why) they feel inferior,” he explained.
The operation is not usually paid for by health insurance.
For the next four months, those who undergo it have to attend physical therapy sessions and use walking devices.
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The last step of the process is to remove the metal barsa procedure that can last an hour and takes place about a year after the first surgery.