Dad of two spends €100k lengthening his limbs to increase height from 6ft to 6ft 7in
An American father of two has had limb-lengthening surgery to increase his height from 6ft to almost 6ft 7in after deciding his legs were “too short” for his body, and hopes to feel “on top of the world” once the 100,000 euro (£86,000) procedure has fully healed.
Brian Sanchez, 33, a mortgage broker who lives in Georgia in the United States with his wife, Nidia, 30, and their daughters, Kaisley, two, and Kairi, six, felt in January 2022 that his body was “out of proportion” and he looked like “like a huge thumb”.
Brian’s main reasons for wanting the surgery were not only for his physical appearance but also to improve his weightlifting goals in the gym and be around nine inches taller than his wife so they will no longer be at “almost eye level”.
When he told his loved ones about his plans, they thought it was “typical of (him)” as just because “something is crazy it never means that (he) won’t do it”.
To recover, Brian had to be in a wheelchair and turn the screws with an Allen wrench four times a day, but when he is fully recovered he thinks the pain will have been “worth it” as he will be able to “enjoy being taller”.
“My wife is pretty tall – we were only about three inches apart – but once I’m fully recovered it’ll be a nine-and-a-half-inch difference,” he said.
“One of the things that I’ll enjoy the most is being able to work out again and put some weight on my legs and have my body look a little bit more how I want it to.”
In January 2022, Brian suddenly realised his legs didn’t match his “torso proportions”.
“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 realised my legs were too short for my body.
“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.”
He said: “I thought I can either find a new hobby, and give up lifting weights, or I can fix the issue.
“I started Googling and ran into the procedure from there – as soon as I saw it, I thought ‘OK, I guess this is what I’m doing’.”
“I know this is a very crazy thing, it’s extremely expensive, time-consuming, difficult, painful and even risky in some respects.”
In December 2022, he had his first operation in a clinic called Live Life Taller in Turkey, which cost him 35,000 euros (£30,000).
The first procedure involved lengthening the tibia and fibula together.
“They then put a rod inside the bone and fastened it with screws and attached the bone segments via pins to external fixators – so you have this piece of steel on the outside of your legs and have these constant open wounds that won’t close until you remove all the hardware.”.
His recovery involved being in a wheelchair and using an Allen wrench to turn a bolt on the fixators four times a day at 90 degrees to separate the bone segments a little at a time.
In February 2023, the external fixators on his tibia were removed and he was around three inches taller.
In March 2023, he had the second operation, which cost him an additional 65,000 euros (£56,000), to carry out the same procedure on his femur.
Now, Brian is just over an additional three-and-a-half inches taller – making him just under 6ft 7in – but is still in a wheelchair and is waiting for it to be completely healed.
He joked: “When it’s fully healed, I’m trying to not have expectations because I don’t want to be disappointed but it’s hard to imagine that I’m not going to enjoy it.
“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.”
“So, when I made the decision to do it, I kind of over-estimated how easy it would be and under-estimated how much pain and how much difficulty would be involved.
“I don’t regret my decision, and I hope that I’m going to be really happy with the results.”