A man who felt like a 'huge thumb' forked out £86,000 to make himself seven inches taller.
After growing tired of looking disproportionate, Brian Sanchez, from Georgia, US, decided to go under the knife and give himself a bit of a lift.
Despite being 6ft, the 33-year-old is a keen bodybuilder, and boasting a hulking figure, he began to feel a little disproportionate.
But when he heard about leg lengthening surgeries, the dad-of-two thought it was the perfect way to alleviate some of his concerns.
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"I thought I can either find a new hobby, and give up lifting weights, or I can fix the issue," Brian explained.
“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’."
The next minute, he was on a plane to Turkey to get the show on the road.
Brian's first operation was in December last year, which involved the nasty business of snapping his tibia and fibula, putting a rod inside the bones, and then fastening it with screws. Yikes.
A few months later, in March, he then had the procedure to actually extend his femur.
As well as feeling like he was too large for his frame, Brian said another reason he wanted to do it was to be a few inches taller than his wife.
“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,” said the mortgage broker.
“It’s going to be really nice just to be able to hug her and have her all the way down there on my chest instead of being almost eye level.
“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.”
Brian began feeling a little self conscious in January 2022.
He noticed at the time that his legs just didn't match his 'torso proportions', and he thought he looked a bit freakish.
“I realised that my legs were always looking weird, and I didn’t know what it was, until one day I was sitting next to my brother-in-law who is almost 6ft 6in, and I was actually a little taller than he was," the dad said.
“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.”
But several months on and thousands of dollars lighter, he's managed to achieve his goal.
Following the operations, Brian now stands at around 6ft 7in tall, and he's pretty happy with the results.
He said: “From the few times that I’ve already stood up, it is bizarre to see people that used to be my height come up to under my nose - it’s really weird, and it’s a lot of fun just seeing the world in a slightly different perspective."
And while he admitted that he never really needed to have the procedure, he's glad he did it.
“I don’t regret my decision, and I hope that I’m going to be really happy with the results," Brian added.
Dominic Smithers