"My Body Won't Stop Growing" - Tanya's Story

Aired on: July 13, 2011

Tanya was an average teenage girl who enjoyed riding bikes, swimming, dancing, but when she hit her late teens - a period when most kids have stopped growing - Tanya's body experienced an unexpected growth spurt. Her face and forehead became enlarged, she began suffering excruciating pain in her joints and back, and by the time she turned 22, the formerly 5-foot-11 girl had grown to 6-feet-4. "I used to be beautiful," Tanya recalls. "Now I feel kind of like a monster."

Doctors diagnosed Tanya with a rare condition called acromegaly, which is caused by a tumor situated on her pituitary gland. Tanya underwent three unsuccessful surgeries to remove the tumor, and now the 32-year-old has reached 6-feet-11 and 368 pounds. She takes over 50 pills a day to deal with the constant headaches, but none of them fulfills the one wish she has: "If there was just one magical drug that could take away all the pain and all the symptoms, I would take it," Tanya says. "If it would shorten my life by 20 years, I would take it because what I'm going through is hell."

Watch the video above for more of Tanya's story, and click here to see how she and her mother deal with her acromegaly on a daily basis.