A WOMAN who had one of her giant legs amputated because of a rare condition has said that the limb is now growing back at an alarming rate.

Mandy Sellars suffers from Proteus syndrome, the same condition thought to have affected the ‘Elephant Man’ Joseph Merrick.

The 36-year-old, of Bolton Avenue, Huncoat, has a normal sized body but massive feet and legs, which at their height weighed more than five stone each.

Mandy said: “I could be the only person in the world with what I’ve got, because the doctors have never seen anybody else with the exact same changes I have in my body.

“Since the operation my leg has just kept on growing and I kind of had an idea that it would, but the operation was something that had to be done.

“I hoped it would stabilise my condition but I’ve put three stone on my leg in 18 months. The stump got so heavy that it broke my prosthetic leg.”

In 1995 Mandy developed cellulitis, an ongoing bacterial infection in her left foot, which turned septic last year.

Surgeons at Liverpool Royal Hospital agreed to amputate her left leg from the knee down to save her life in January 2010, and this summer she appeared in a Channel 5 documentary called Losing One of My Giant Legs, which followed her recovery.

But after the operation the leg began ballooning again width ways - and it now weighs three stone and has a circumference of one metre.

Formerly an RSPCA volunteer, Mandy is undergoing two sessions of physiotherapy a week in a bid to get back on her feet and back to work.

She said: “I’m housebound at the moment because I can only get in my car when somebody helps me and it’s very hard work having to push myself around in a wheelchair.

“Hopefully at some point I will be walking on the leg again, but because of these problems it’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

“My other leg is not too bad, it’s grown a bit but it is okay.

“It’s such a shame because I enjoyed volunteering and it’s not nice not being able to get out and be around people.”