Science- Brian Sanchez, 33, was 6 feet tall but felt his short legs made him look like a "Spy Kids" Thumb Thumb.
- He also didn't like that his 5-foot-10 wife could almost look him level in the eyes.
Until recently, Brian Sanchez was quite happy with his muscular body.
At 6 feet, he towered above the average height for men (5-foot-7), with a broad frame, shaped by his dedicated weight-lifting routine. He didn't love his legs, but couldn't put his finger on why, exactly.
That changed a few months ago, when he was sitting next to his 6-foot-6 brother-in-law.
"I was actually a little taller than he was," Sanchez, 33, told PA Real Life.
"I thought that was weird, because I knew he was taller than I am by a lot, and we stood up, and all of a sudden, I started looking and realized my legs were short. I'm broad, have long arms, and I'm wide, but my short legs make me look different. I almost look like a huge thumb, like those thumb men from Spy Kids."
From then, Sanchez couldn't shake the feeling that his body was slightly off. It started to get to him that his wife, Nidia, who is 5-foot-10, could almost look him level in the eyes. He was no longer proud of his upper-body gains, and fantasized about bulking up his legs to match.
"I thought, I can either find a new hobby, and give up lifting weights, or I can fix the issue," Sanchez said.
Enter leg-lengthening surgery: An increasingly popular procedure for people — mainly men — to increase their height.
To grow 7 inches, you need 2 leg-lengthening surgeries (and $100,000)
While US surgeons perform this procedure, Sanchez, a mortgage broker and father of two in Georgia, came across a clinic in Turkey during an online search.
He wanted to add 7 inches to his legs, which would require two major surgeries. (The maximum length you can add at a time is around 3 inches, a surgeon previously told Insider.)
All in, the cosmetic procedures would set him back more than $100,000 — $37,400 for the first operation, $69,487 for the second — plus travel to and from Istanbul, and months, or even years, of physical therapy.
For Sanchez, it was worth it. In December 2022, he traveled to the clinic, aptly named LiveLifeTaller, PA reported.
How leg-lengthening surgery works
This operation is no joke.
First, a surgeon breaks the tibia and fibula, the two longest bones in the lower leg, on each side. Then, they hollow out each tibia, removing enough bone marrow to fit a rod, known as a "needle." Next, they create incisions around each leg, and insert pins that screw into each central rod to stabilize them.
For two months after his operation, Sanchez was confined to a wheelchair. During that time he had to use an Allen wrench four times a day to turn a bolt to extend the length of the rods in his legs, he told PA. Doing so helps separate the broken bone fragments, which allows the body to fill the gap with regrown bone.
By February 2023, Sanchez's legs were 3.5 inches longer, PA reported. In March 2023, he had exactly the same procedure, but on his femurs, the main bones in the upper part of the legs.
Now, he is 6 feet 7 inches tall.
Astonishingly, Sanchez said he "actually felt great" after his procedures, and "there was almost no pain throughout the entire process." The most painful part was stretching his legs, and some insomnia caused by the discomfort of his pins and rods.
His wife will be chest-level, and he can see above the fridge
Sanchez can't yet walk, but he's had a preview of his height, by standing with a walker, and he's excited.
He'll tower over his wife ("it's going to be really nice just to be able to hug her and have her all the way down there on my chest instead of being almost eye level") and start bulking up his newly long legs.
There are some other fun perks, he told PA: "It's really weird, and it's a lot of fun just seeing the world in a slightly different perspective. I can see above the fridge more easily, not that it's that important, but it's cool, I'll be able to see other people's bald spots, everything will be just different."
Sanchez is trying not to have high expectations, but he is optimistic.
"I didn't need to do this procedure, but I really wanted to," he said. "I don't regret my decision, and I hope that I'm going to be really happy with the results."