Man pays ₹ 55 lakh to increase height

Texas: A man has undergone cosmetic limb-lengthening surgery to increase his height from 5ft 11 to 6ft 1 to be more like the basketball heroes he grew up with.

Alfonso Flores, 28, from Dallas, Texas, said that he had wanted to be taller from the age of 12 but his family and friends had all warned him against the 'unnecessary' treatment.

The freelance writer and pre-med student persevered with the surgery under the care of Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon Dr Kevin Debiparshad of The LimbplastX Institute in Las Vegas. Alfonso has now been at his new height for seven months and says that it feels great to say he has finally achieved his dream of topping 6ft. The procedure is incredibly expensive, however.

Dr Debiparshad's website states that the surgeries start at $75,000 (Rs 55 lakh) for a femur-lengthening procedure - which is what Alfonso had done - and go up to $84,000 for a tibia-lengthening surgery, however patients may also opt for add-ons that can raise the price to around $94,000.

Between one and two years after the surgery has taken place, patients then have to fork out an additional fee to have the nails removed from their legs, a procedure that costs between $14,000 and $20,000, which would bring the total cost of the limb-lengthening to between $89,000 and $114,000.