I’m also really curious about the specifics mentioned in the comment by Tyler Lopez62, specifically how long you all had to wait for surgery and what the whole prep process looks like before the big day!
Regarding the Vacuum Bell, I actually gave it a shot about six months ago, and let me tell you, it is quite a commitment if you're looking for actual results... the therapy can honestly drag on for years. Plus, if you're using it at maximum suction, after about an hour the skin around the edges starts getting pretty irritated, which can be super painful until you finally get used to it. In my experience, the deformity really needs to be symmetrical and ideally concentrated right in the center of the chest to work well, but that’s just not my situation... mine stretches all the way from my collarbone down to the end of my sternum, and it's fairly wide and asymmetrical toward the right side. Because of that, I can't get the Vacuum Bell to stay suctioned properly, so whenever I twist or move around, the seal breaks and the whole VB just pops right off! If your situation isn't like mine, it might actually be worth a try, and some people say the VB can help stretch the bones out before a Nuss procedure to make them more flexible, so the surgery itself isn't such a massive shock to the system... at least, that's what they say. I'm 22 now and I think I'm just going to go for the Nuss... I haven't had any official scans done yet, but if I had to guess based on photos I've seen online, I'd say my Haller index is somewhere between a 3 and a 4, though obviously, you can't really judge that accurately just by looking in the mirror...
Regarding the Vacuum Bell, I actually gave it a shot about six months ago, and let me tell you, it is quite a commitment if you're looking for actual results... the therapy can honestly drag on for years. Plus, if you're using it at maximum suction, after about an hour the skin around the edges starts getting pretty irritated, which can be super painful until you finally get used to it. In my experience, the deformity really needs to be symmetrical and ideally concentrated right in the center of the chest to work well, but that’s just not my situation... mine stretches all the way from my collarbone down to the end of my sternum, and it's fairly wide and asymmetrical toward the right side. Because of that, I can't get the Vacuum Bell to stay suctioned properly, so whenever I twist or move around, the seal breaks and the whole VB just pops right off! If your situation isn't like mine, it might actually be worth a try, and some people say the VB can help stretch the bones out before a Nuss procedure to make them more flexible, so the surgery itself isn't such a massive shock to the system... at least, that's what they say. I'm 22 now and I think I'm just going to go for the Nuss... I haven't had any official scans done yet, but if I had to guess based on photos I've seen online, I'd say my Haller index is somewhere between a 3 and a 4, though obviously, you can't really judge that accurately just by looking in the mirror...