Moses Gibson, a 5ft 5in man from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has undergone an excruciatingly painful leg surgery to increase his height.

Moses said he experienced “Heightism” from a young age and as he get older, he had difficulty finding a woman because of his height.

According to him, he had been insecure about his height since he was 15 after seeing other boys his age go through growth spurts, something he didn’t experience.

The young man, who is now in his early 40s, admitted he was faced with derogatory comments about his height, which hurt his “Self Confidence”.

Desperate for a solution, Moses tried medications that promised him he would grow taller and even contacted a “spiritual healer” in his quest for a taller figure.

According to him, he almost lost hope until he encountered a painful procedure that involves breaking several bones.

Moses gained three inches after his first surgery in 2016 and now hopes to reach his height goal of 5ft 10 inches by June after undergoing a second surgery.

The 41-year-old spent a total of $160,000 on the intensive procedures but says it was worth it after years of dissatisfaction.

“I’ve struggled with height, I don’t know whether ‘heightism’ is what they call it, but being on the shorter side for men. Even when I was in high school, I was always unhappy with my height. As far back as when I was probably like 15, I realised most of my peers were taller than me.

“It started getting to me gradually. I just didn’t feel good about myself, I was unhappy about it most of the time. I used to like clothes and shoes, but I started not feeling happy when I put them on and I wanted to look better.

“It was my self-confidence in general, and with the ladies. It affected my dating life. I used to put things in my shoes to gain a little bit of height, but it wasn’t very much. People made comments. Sometimes it wasn’t in a mean way or intending to hurt, but they’d say ‘sh*t dude, you’re short man’ or make a joke of it.

“I’m a strong, tough guy, so I was never depressed about it but I went searching to see what I could do about it. I bought medication online that promised to make you the height you’re looking for. I took it for a while before realising it was nonsense and stopped it.

“I was talking to some spiritual healer online by e-mail who promised they could heal any problem. I tried talking to them to see if they could help but they just said ‘it all just depends on if you believe it’.” He said.

Moses worked for three years as a software engineer in the day and an Uber driver at night to save $75,000 for the first surgery, which increased his height to 5ft 8in.

In March, he paid another $98,000 for a second operation, during which doctors fractured his tibia and fibula bones and screw magnetic, limb-lengthening nails into them.

He now has to use a height-lengthening device three times a day to spread the severed bone millimeter by millimeter.

It works by encouraging the body to create new bone tissue to fill the gap until it eventually reaches the desired 5ft 10in height.

As for why he had a second surgery, Moses said,

“After the first procedure, I was happy with it to some extent, but it was always in my mind that I wanted to do the second one to complete it.”