Height Surgery: Have Cosmetic Procedures Gone Too Far?

Height surgery the newest plastic surgery procedure?

Height Surgery the Latest Cosmetic Procedure

Just when you think plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures couldn't get any weirder, along comes something like this.

Height surgery. No joke.

A man going by the name Apotheosis says that at five foot, six inches, he was unhappy with his height.

The solution? Costly (and painful) surgeries that made him grow a full six inches.

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What could possibly make these surgeries worth it, just for cosmetic reasons?

Apotheosis reveals in a new 20/20 special about extreme plastic surgery: "I realized that the world looked at me a certain way that I didn't look at myself in that certain way. I wanted the way I felt about myself and the way the world felt about me to be similar."

The limb-lengthening procedure is growing in popularity, with Dr. Dror Paley, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Paley Institute at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, having performed 650 of these procedures last year.

Paley notes, "The majority who come for cosmetic limb lengthening have what we call, height dysphoria. They're unhappy with their height. It's one of the few psychologic-psychiatric disorders that you can actually cure with the knife."

Paley is among only a few doctors in the U.S. who will perform the procedure, which involves breaking the leg bone in two and implanting a telescopic rod into the broken bones that pulls the bone about one millimeter a day.

Amazingly, new bone and muscle, nerves, arteries and skin regenerate.

The procedure takes three months to complete and costs $85,000. It requires extensive physical therapy as well.

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Apotheosis is still in recovery, but shares, "When I walk down the street a different person perceived differently by the world for the rest of my life, you know, I am who I want to be now."

20/20's "The Cutting Edge" special, which looks at extreme plastic surgery, airs tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC.