Sometimes I am amazed as what I see when I manage to focus all of my attention on any type of issue related to height, even if the connection is very small. This is what happened yesterday, while I was walking through the famous COEX Mall that is located off of the Samseong Subway Station in Seoul, South Korea. I was having a rough day and I took my GF to the mall to walk around and as we walked around the a mall the sight of a young boy in crutches really caught my eye.

This young boy, who was very young was walking by himself on crutches and had one of his lower legs wearing one of the external fixators which I am so familiar with. The sight was so extraordinary, and when my GF say the metal device that had its metal spoke coming out of his skin, she expressed shock over the fact that this boy was walking around in public which his external fixator. For her, the sight was too disturbing. I felt a little bit of sadness over what this boy was going through. Personally I probably had more of an understanding of why he needed to get this procedure done.

It was clear that this boy was still very young, who was still growing. He was not using the method of distraction osteogenesis to make his legs longer, and look taller. He had a serious medical condition. Most of the procedures of distraction osteogenesis done is to correct for a difference in the length of a certain bone region between the left and right side of a person. You can do callotasis on more than just the long bones, but also the mandibular bone. One of his legs was shorter than the other. To walk with a more normal gait, his leg was being lengthened. I understood that there was a lot of pain associated with the process, but I have never experienced it myself.

This is the first time I have ever seen anyone were an external fixator out in public. However I am not that surprised to see it in a place like Seoul, South Korea. Seoul has been also the same place where I saw a case of a korean women who suffered from gigantism, multiple people suffering from albinism, one case of a person who suffered from Osteogensis Imperfecta (Refer to Sean Stephenson), and various types of achondroplasia and dwarfism. For a country that seems to pride itself on being so homogeneous and image conscious, there are many people who just don’t look ‘average’ whatever that means.

After see the young boy in the crutched, we actually went to donate blood. Apparently blood donating is a popular thing to do these days in Korea. Everyone there in the donation clinic seemed to know what their blood type is, except me. I was once told that my blood type is the most common type there is. The Asian fascination with blood type is something I probably won’t understand very well. It would turn out that my GF’s blood’s plasma is low on Calcium and that her blood did not have the requirements to make her a potential doner. This concerned me greatly, since she has been complaining about how her knees have been hurting for years, the symptom of cold knees, and the desire to be taller. Immediately I realized that there was a clear connection between her lack of calcium, the knee pain, and the cold knees.

How could a women desire to be taller and not even be able to have a sufficient level of Calcium and Vitamin D in her bones and system?

I would immediately take her to the GNC in the mall and tried to stock up on Calcium & Vitamin D 1500 MG as well as Glucosamine Sulphate & Chondroitin 1500 mg. Her resistance on spending $50 on these supplements which would help at least a little with the bone mineral density, combined with her strong desire to become taller, her choice on diet to avoid protein, and her symptom of having intense knee discomfort and cold knees is actually making me realize that she is asking for things in life which are in direct disagreement with each other. She doesn’t know about this website. She doesn’t realize that I have been dedicating for over a year of my life towards this goal, in not just figuring out how to increase height, but also in treating bone and orthopedic disorders. I know how to help her, but she just won’t listen to my advice. Maybe she thinks she is helping me save a little bit of money, but she is risking her own health, and her height by not fixing this problem.

I wrote about the issue of having low Calcium levels leading to severe height loss later in mid age due to menopause in the post The Connection Between Bone Loss From Osteoporosis And Decreases In Height In East Asian Females. The study Usefulness of Estimated Height Loss for Detection of Osteoporosis in Women showed that while a lose of 2-4 cm in height is normal, any more than 4 cms of height loss due to bone density decreases means that osteoporosis has set in. My biggest worry is that not only will she not increase in height, which she desperately desires, due to refusing to listen to my insistence on taking certain supplements to help improve the health of the knees, she is also going to risk getting osteoporosis due to diet choices causing the exact opposite effect for her. 

If she only knew what I know, and saw what I see.