Woman who couldn't stop growing dies at age 34

LAS VEGAS - A woman who suffered from one of the world's worst cases of gigantism passed away on Monday after a 13-year fight with the rare medical condition.

Tanya Angus, 34, from Vegas was a beautiful young woman who dreamt of becoming an actress when she was hit by a rare medical abnormality which caused her body to grow non-stop.

Before her 21st birthday, she was a normal 5-foot-11 (180cm), 115 pound (52kg) slender young woman who walked fashion runways, loved dancing and had a boyfriend.

However, when she hit 21, she began noticing that she no longer fit into some clothes, and her hands had become enlarged.

"Tanya was 21 when she started growing," her mother Karen Strutynski said. "She was perfectly normal, but by age 22 she had grown three inches."

"Nobody knew what was going on."

She added that the family noticed something was seriously wrong when Tanya's sister Susie picked her up at the airport in 2002 and noticed a significant physical change in her sister.

"Tanya was taken to a friend who is a pediatrician. A few days later, our family's lives changed forever," she said.

Tanya was diagnosed with a disorder called acromegaly, where a non-cancerous tumour causes the body to produce too much growth hormone. In children the condition is known as gigantism.

The tumour had become wrapped around Tanya's pituitary gland, causing it to release massive amounts of growth hormone into her body, The Daily Mail UK reported.

Her worsening condition got her fired from her position as a Walmart supervisor in Michigan, and heartbreakingly, her boyfriend broke up with her when his parents questioned whether she was actually a man.

Source : yourhealth.com