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I've been a lurker for a long time but wanted to post with a question about getting the maximum amount of skeletal growth (wingspan, height, bone thickness, anything) possible after a long period of malnourishment as a 22-year old male.
BACKGROUND ----
If background is important, here it is: I had moderate, to at times quite serious, restrictive eating disorder from age 9-20, and was already a picky eater before then, never eating dairy because I hated the taste of it. I was even doing compulsive over-exercising from ages 15-18, very sedentary after that, and have significant osteoporosis to this day despite weight gain.
At age 20, I recovered in the course of a few months to a bmi of 18.5, and many joint pains, feeling of constant coldness, constant finger/nail infections, lightheadness/weakness between meals, and dry skin that I was dealing with gradually went away when I gained weight.
I'm now at a bmi of 19, and last week I suddenly discovered that my growth plates are not completely closed when perusing over my recent imaging for hip impingement and scoliosis. I'm not sure how much growth can be squeezed out of nearly-fused/post-peak-growth-rate-stage plates, but I have read about "Type 2 catch-up growth" (see: https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/18/5/646/2530771?login=false), and I speculate about whether the expected amount of growth based on the degree of ossification of growth plates could vary depending on your nutritional history.
Anyway, this has inspired me to gain more weight, up to a bmi of 21, as due to my scoliosis that shortens my height significantly, it is arguable that I may still be slightly underweight according to my corrected height. A BMI of 21 ensures that I will not be underweight even at that "corrected" height. Now coming to the point of this post:
I want to use this period of gaining weight to at least try to get bigger skeletally in some way. I will accept if I do not get bigger in any way. I just don't want to have any regrets that I didn't do everything I could to maximize my skeletal health and size. In part, I want to get bigger because my frame size/transverse size of bones is literally off-the-percentile-charts small by my calculations, and height and limb lengths are somewhat below average, and well below average in comparison to other people of my generation in my family. I know I have to get over that insecurity (which ironically is the fricking opposite of the disorder I struggled with for 10 years!) but I still want to try and get measurable, even if not outwardly noticeable, skeletal growth, either in thickness/transverse growth, or length/longitudinal growth. I understand it may not happen, and that catch-up growth is not guaranteed, and I am trying to keep my expectations in check.
I'm going to see a doctor about all this stuff anyway to see what they have to say. I already see an endo for my osteoporosis but at the time, I thought I was done growing so I didn't ask them any of this stuff. Plus, I'm now a bit scared of being laughed at for trying to grow more at age 22, although my rational mind tells me that it is not totally impossible that I could still grow some measurable amount.
I figured that there may be lifestyle, exercise, diet, or supplement modifications that I have not heard of, and that are at least sufficiently plausible from a mechanistic perspective, to optimize skeletal growth after malnourishment, as well as potential critiques of my current system and places where I might be going wrong that I don't even realize. I thought that this would be the place to find that out or at least to point me in the right direction to where I can find that out. I am also aware that I may very well grow a tiny bit even if I don't do anything special, heck I probably should not be stressing out over it as much as I am, that's probably already a major change I can make. At the same time, I do want to be proactive about my health and optimize this.
I know this website is full of very insightful people, and in-depth discussions that I don't see elsewhere, so I figured if anyone has any ideas for trying to get even marginally better conditions for skeletal growth in someone who is almost done growing but probably has stunted their growth, I might find them here, and I am all ears.
BACKGROUND (ABOVE) IS FINISHED -----
What I'm currently doing: -3 cups of milk per day (Started last week, this is up from 1 cup per day that I have been drinking since age 20 and 0 cups before then) -Full body weightlifting 3x/week (have been doing since age 20 but 6x/week at a volume that was my maximum recoverable volume, and probably became a bit of an obsession as well) -Very hot bath to replicate a sauna, 1x/week after watching a video on some experimental sauna protocol for HGH (started last week) -Trying to destress -10g Collagen supplement to get more nonessential but possibly under-synthesized (not an expert, so this may be false?) amino acids like glycine -High protein diet -Surplus of about 300 cal/day
What I'm not doing but maybe should be doing: -Cardio -High-impact exercise (I was under the impression weights are just as good, but not certain about this) -Earlier bedtime, more time sleeping when it is fully dark outside, getting off screens earlier -Weighted hanging/exercising with high tensile forces on your bones? -Avoiding compressive exercises? -More relaxation
Concern regarding exercise: -I'm not sure if weightlifting and the resulting compression of bones would be bad for getting the most growth out of growth plates, and if I should instead just do high-impact exercise like jumps, and stick to lighter weights until I'm certain that I won't grow any more, or if this line of reasoning is misguided and I should just keep doing weights. I could argue that I should be weight training because it can boost HGH and other hormones more than other types of exercise, and that it might be more important to boost anabolic hormones considering my history than trying to avoid the slight fusing effect of compression on growth plates?
Things I am considering taking soon but not sure how effective they are: -Creatine and L-Arginine for HGH -L-Ornithine for sleep and possibly HGH? -Wondering if any other supplements can reliably, or at least theoretically, boost growth-related hormones (not just HGH, but I suppose testosterone too?)
I probably do not want to take exogenous hormones in case there are side effects and I end up with no growth anyway. I'm trying to just do my best from the exercise, diet, lifestyle, and supplementation side of things.
Any advice is much appreciated and sorry for the super long post!
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