But the discomfort crossed into agony on Day 56, when his left shin was burning. “NERVE PAIN IS THE WORST,” he wrote.

By then, he had lengthened each of his femurs 47 millimeters, or 1.85 inches.

Mr. Trinh paused the regimen. Lying in a hotel room with ice on his leg, he felt low. It was not yet his goal — an extra 7.5 centimeters, or about three inches — but he feared doing permanent damage to his nerves.

Others on the Discord chat said that they, too, had experienced nerve damage, and encouraged him to stay positive.

To his relief, the burning subsided after a few days. He pushed on.

By August, about three months after his surgery, he had extended his legs by nearly three inches.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5836985&forum_id=2#49684975)

And he was now exactly 5-foot-9, around the average height for an American man.

Mr. Trinh was not yet fully finished with the process. The implants in his bones needed to be removed. His left shin, he said, was still partly numb, which he had accepted could be permanent. He still felt tightness in his pelvis when he jogged.

In January, eight months after his surgery, Mr. Trinh went for a 22 mile hike at a forest in Texas. And he was surprised at how much better he felt in cargo shorts.

His recovery, he said, had gone particularly well. (Some patients on the same timeline were still working their way up to jogging, he said.)

People who knew him noticed, of course, that he was taller. He was truthful with some, and he held back with others. But the “itch” in his mind about his height, he said, was gone.

“I’m just perfectly average, where I need to be,” he said. ”It’s a nice feeling.”

He wondered sometimes whether his legs still looked proportionate. He had not yet ruled out a second surgery, this time on his tibias, to correct his bow legs.

It would be a bonus, he said, if it made him even taller.

Matt Yan contributed reporting.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5836985&forum_id=2#49684979)