Men who risk it all to be tall

Limb lengthening can cost up to £50,000 - and leaves patients in agony for months. Is this extreme surgery the height of folly? Joe Kita and Lee Kynaston report

05 April 2004

The cages that surround Jim Conran's legs look like scaffolding. Each has 11 metal pins that screw into his broken bones. Every six hours he must turn these pins ever so slightly in order to tighten the wires that then pull the bones apart and align them correctly. He has been doing this for 68 days. And all the time the pain has been intensifying.

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