India’s Hub For Pectus Surgery

Dr. Darlong guided me and helped me in the meantime when I lost hope from all the doctors I visited, except Dr. Darlong. All the doctors told me this health issue is not going to resolve and I have to live like this for the rest of my life. A higher level of unawareness in doctors and the medical field misguided me. I was almost filled with suicidal and depressive thoughts.

May God bless Dr. Darlong. Because of him, I am still alive and living a confident and quality life.

“If you wish to live to see better days, then you must endure the bad days.” -Abdul Kalam

On completing a successful decade of pectus surgery by Dr. Darlong, I would like to congratulate the doctor and share my pectus experience in my life.

Before the Surgery –
I am Avinash from Hyderabad and I suffered from pectus excavatum (hollow chest). I have noticed this during my 8th Standard and from then on, I have consulted various doctors in and around Hyderabad but couldn’t find the one to fix it.

I have psychologically undergone lots of stress and whenever I look at my hollow chest, I used to feel depressed. I hardly interacted with my friends and avoided trips with them. Whenever I am required to remove my shirt, I used to have an awkward feeling, to the extent that I have never gone swimming even once in my life. My parents spent sleepless nights thinking about my condition.

During the Surgery –
I came to about Dr. Darlong through pectusindia.com and when I consulted him he has given me the hope for a bright future ahead. Though the surgery is complicated he made it look too simple. I have undergone my surgery in August 2020 when I was 21 years and it was a four-day stay in the hospital in Delhi after which I was discharged and traveled back to my hometown by flight. It was those initial 15 days that were tough during which the doctor treated me like his friend and made me recover soon. In this regard, I would also like to thank nurses and supporting staff for their caring nature in the hospital.

After the Surgery –
It has been almost a year since I had this surgery by the time I am writing this article. Most of them say this surgery is just a cosmetic surgery but it is just beyond it. Before this surgery, when I played cricket, I used to quickly exhaust but after this surgery, I could clearly notice better lung functioning. Apart from this, the surgery also helped me gain weight quickly and now I had a better posture than before.

Debanjan Ghosh from west bengal who recently underwent the NUSS procedure in DELHI.

We have been performing the Nuss procedure since early 2012 and have modified and innovated our techniques from pectus tunneloscopy / moon bridge fixation technique / cross bar technique to make it safer and bring 0% bar displacement as many come from farway states and country. In this period we have touched /changed life’s for better to people all over from India and globally from North and south america to middle east and south asia /australia etc. Many of those teenagers who underwent the nuss procedure have gone from school to college and many are also settled in marriage. The pectus deformity being a very personal subject to the individual we have refrained from posting images online as they are all like family members, for this reason i have not posted any social media pages earlier directly related to individuals, In my clinic i encourage any one planning for surgery to talk to my other patients who have undergone the surgery.

I will like to extend a million thanks to Debanjan for having the courage to speak about his pectus surgery on social media and allowing me share it to spread awareness.He will be most willing to share his ups and downs of his treatment to anyone in need.

Awareness Post : My Story of By Birth Defect in Chest Wall.

There are some uncommon defects or disease where we ignore in past and later gets noticed as critical and have no clue how to handle it or how to cure it if we are not sure about the solution. I felt like to share my story so that it might help someone who has chest wall deformity as it’s very common nowadays but many of us ignores it.

I have been fighting since childhood to find the solution of chest wall deformity. But failed to get any solution as wasn’t aware of the disease and its proper diagnosis wasn’t done.I had symptoms like fainting, Shortness of Breath after climbing stairs or running for sometime etc. This gradually went up high and frequent.

Diagnosis part:
This year starting I happened to visit a Homoeopathy Dr. Buddhadeb Ghosh in Balurghat. At one glance, he readily suspected the issue of my chest. Medically we call it as Pectus Excavatum or Sunken Chest or Funnel Chest. So, he referred me to Cardiologist and get CT Scan of Chest done so that we are sure of it. Through CT Scan it was proved that Sunken Chest has been severe hollow in which it impacted both Lungs and Heart. As per reports, luckily heart was functioning well but Lungs was bit abnormal. This was serious side wise I was but relaxed that finally it has been caught. SPECIAL THANKS TO DR. BUDDHADEB whose diagnosis helped to crack the cause.

Now comes solution part:
Firstly, There are no medicines to cure the sunken chest. The only option is Surgery and depends on the criticality. We came across Dr. Laleng Darlong who holds expertise on Pectus Excavatum. He is currently attached with Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute Hospital, Delhi. We consulted him and was confirmed about the necessary of the surgery. The process is lengthy but worth. We were confident about his process and mentally prepared for it. The surgery was done on 31st July by using Nuss Procedure which is two iron rods will be inserted to uplift the chest wall so that it gets to normal position. The iron rods will stay for 3 years and after that again another Surgery will be done to remove the rods.And then will be able to lead normal life. Post surgery 3 months will be critical in terms of internal pains and restricted body movements. After 3 months , can slowly start normal life but being careful.

I sincerely Thank Dr. L.M. Darlong for his dedication, friendly behaviour and getting the treatment done smoothly and giving me another version to lead life 🙏

Also, Notable Thanks to Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre Hospital for their dedicated Hospitality Services provided for the patients and hats off to management for being transparent and having official work done smoothly in this pandemic situation.

Info on Pectus Excavatum :
A condition in which the breastbone sinks into the chest.
Pectus excavatum is often noticeable shortly after birth and typically worsens during the adolescent growth spurt. It’s more common in boys. It may be associated with genetic or connective tissue diseases.