Doctor Makes $75K Per Procedure By 'Breaking' People's Legs

A limb-lengthening procedure, which reportedly rakes in serious money for a Las Vegas doctor, is said to do wonders for those who want to improve their height. Charging clients as much as $75,000 for the procedure, Dr. Kevin Depiparshad, a spine and orthopedic surgery specialist based in Nevada, says he can help improve patients’ limbs by up to six inches.

Improving Height

The Harvard-educated doctor states he can achieve this by making incisions in the tibia or femur, then inserting what he calls a “sometimes painful device” that gradually stretches the bones permanently. After the procedure, the patient uses remote control that causes the device to stretch the bone in stages. In a way, the device will first break the bone and then allow it to heal.

According to Dr. Debiparshad, while the method is “usually painless,” there are instances when patients may feel some discomfort. The orthopedic surgery specialist helped develop the procedure at his Las Vegas LimbplastX Institute.

A Painful Process

A former patient, however, told Jam Press in an interview that the procedure is one of the most painful he felt in his entire life. “I first decided that I wanted to change my height when I was in high school,” Irving Rodriguez said. His maximum biological height was only five feet and four inches, or around four to five inches short of the average height of an adult American male, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows.

Rodriguez says he would always be on the receiving end of jokes about being short and revealed he was considered unfit for some positions because of his below-average height. In December of 2019, he decided to undergo the laborious procedure where Dr. Debiparshad attached the device on his leg bone with a series of screws.

Getting Taller

The surgeon said that once healing begins, the patient can then use the device to improve their height by as much as 1 millimeter each day. “Patients can expect to gain up to 6 inches in height across two lengthening surgeries. This bone-lengthening process is usually painless, and the surgery takes about an hour and a half to complete,” Dr. Debiparshad said. He added patients can commence with their physical therapy the very next day and may expect to return to their normal activities after a couple of weeks.

After some time, Rodriguez, who also happens to be a plastic surgeon, is a bit taller at five feet and 6.7 inches. He says the pain is gone and feels he is “in complete harmony” with his body. The psychology of height has always been a big factor in social acceptance, I believe, and it can even impact an individual’s economic and relationship success,” Rodriguez ended.