Mental Health

Woman Who Couldn’t Stop Growing Dies at 7 feet 2 inches

By Staff Reporter | Update Date: Jan 17, 2013 11:16 AM EST

Tanya Angus, a woman who couldn't stop growing, went from being 5 feet 8 inches tall in her teens to 7 feet 2 inches and weighed about 400 pounds when she died Monday.

Angus, 34, grew so much over the next decade that her rings had to be modified, she had to use custom utensils, and she got around in a motorized wheelchair.

Angus, a Las Vegas native, was a victim of a rare disorder called acromegaly that wouldn't let her stop growing. In children the condition is known as gigantism. Her condition was the result of the release of too much growth hormone caused by a non-cancerous tumor on her pituitary gland.

"Yes I know I don't look feminine, I don't look girly anymore but I want people to know that if you get diagnosed early you won't turn out like me," said Tanya, in a previous CNN interview.

The cause of her death is yet to be determined after the autopsy returns, but her mother, Karen Strutynski believes Angus died after catching a cold and developing a tear in her heart.

"'Mom, I don't know why I got it,'" Strutynski recalled her daughter saying."'But I guess God decided that I could handle it.'"

"There's nothing made for giants," her mother said.

Some people judged her daughter, Ms Strutynski said, believing she used a wheelchair because she lacked the discipline to keep her weight down. What they didn't know is that she ate one meal a day, and her medications caused her face to swell, her mother said.

"People were very cruel until she went into the media," Strutynski added.

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