This blog was written by Hillary Strilko, web content writer and social media coordinator for the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics at LifeBridge Health.
Many people have a leg length discrepancy that their body must compensate for. 
Some are born with legs of different lengths or have an illness (like a bone infection or disease) that causes the discrepancy. Others, like Victor Egonu, suffer an injury that can cause a discrepancy in length to develop over time.
When he was 11 years old, Victor broke his left tibia (shinbone) in a rollerblading accident. Poor setting of the bone and fractured growth plates (which control how children’s bones grow) caused his left leg to be two inches shorter than his right leg by the time he had finished growing. The difference in length caused Victor to have a limp in his walk and bad back, ankle, knee and hip pain.
A world class, drug-free professional body builder, Victor’s performance was being stifled by his condition. In 2012, when he was 23, he turned to the International Center for Limb Lengthening at the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. After meeting with Dr. Janet Conway, he decided to lengthen his shorter leg via the Precice internal lengthening procedure.
The Precice lengthening system by NuVasive consists of a telescoping metal rod, called a lengthening nail, with a magnetic motor inside it. Dr. Conway inserted the nail through a small incision in Victor’s bone canal. After the surgery, Victor used an external remote controller (ERC) to make the Precice nail lengthen very slowly—about 0.03 to 0.04 inches a day. When Victor placed the ERC against his leg and turned it on, the movement of the magnet inside the ERC activated the magnetic motor inside the Precice system, prompting the device to slowly lengthen. As the Precice device lengthened, so did Victor’s bone.
“Before I had a limp in my walk, but now I have a spring in my step. So, I think it’s made a huge difference,” Egonu says. “It was so cool that I was fixed, and it’s all thanks to Dr. Conway and the awesome team at the International Center for Limb Lengthening.”
Victor’s bodybuilding abilities also improved after his procedure. “Once I got the surgery, I was able to compete at an extremely high level, not placing lower than third place including two top three-finishes at the world championships in Washington, D.C. in 2015 and 2018,” he says. While gym closures due to COVID-19 delayed his training, he is already focused on winning the world championships in 2021.
The difference the surgery has made in Victor’s life inspired him to start “Cyborg 4 Life,” a new video blog and podcast about limb lengthening. (Check out Victor’s recent interview with Dr. Conway, who he calls the “Queen of Limb Lengthening.”)
“In a nutshell, it's the resource I wish I had when I was considering the procedure, and it's my way of paying it forward,” Egonu says about “Cyborg 4 Life,” adding that he plans to share effective physical and psychological post-surgery rehabilitation techniques in future episodes.
To learn more about the International Center for Limb Lengthening, a global leader in limb lengthening procedures and orthopedic deformity correction, visit www.limblength.org.