Woman's giant leg starts growing back after being amputated

Mandy Sellars had one of her gigantic legs amputated when doctors warned her that the limb would kill her. But 22 months after the operation, it is growing back at an alarming rate. Mandy, 36, suffers from a rare disease meaning she has a normal sized body but massive feet and legs. Her left leg, which had weighed about five stone, led to serious infections.

When she developed septicaemia in the limb her worried doctors said: “It’s you or the leg.” But after the operation it began ballooning again. It now weighs three stone and has a circumference of one metre. Mandy said: “I hoped the amputation would stabilise my condition but I think I knew in my heart that it would start growing again.



“Almost straight away the stump began increasing in circumference and I was finding it harder to fit it into my prosthetic leg. Then the stump got so heavy that it broke the prosthetic leg.” The ex-RSPCA voluntary worker suffers from a condition similar to Proteus syndrome, the illness that is thought to have affected Elephant Man Joseph Merrick in the 19th century.

Mandy, of Accrington, Lancs, is hopeful that a cure can be found and said: “I will not let this thing beat me. I’m determined to stay as mobile as possible and fight for my independence. I just have to live day to day, week to week. I have got a life and I have to live it as best as I can. There are people far worse off than me.”