The woman is suffering from a rare form of localized gigantism, specialists say

Sep 3, 2014 18:57 GMT  ·  By

A 59-year-old woman currently living in Thailand's Surin Province is believed to have the biggest hands in the world. Thus, this woman's upper limbs each weigh a whopping 1.5 stones (approximately 9.5 kilograms).

The 59-year-old is named Duangjay Samaksamam. She makes a living selling groceries at a shop owned by her family, and has been battling her deformity since birth, media reports say.

Thus, the woman says that she was born with big hands, and that her limbs only grew larger as the years went by. In fact, they grew to such an impressive size that she now has trouble performing even the simplest of tasks.

“My mum told me that I was like this since I was born. I became afraid to go out or go to school, so I never learned to read,” the woman told the press in an interview, as cited by Daily Mail.

“My hands are so heavy I can barely lift them to comb or shampoo my hair, it's very difficult. Getting dressed is also very difficult and painful,” 59-year-old Duangjay Samaksamam went on to explain.

Duangjay Samaksamam says that, when she was younger, she used to spend much of her time indoors to avoid being seen and made fun of. However, as her parents grew older, she was left with no choice but take over the family business.

The 59-year-old, who presently lives with her sister and her niece, eventually learned how to run the family-owned shop in Thailand's Surin Province, and even grew accustomed to having people stare at her and her hands.

Specialists who have had the chance to take a look at her hands say that the 59-year-old shop owner is suffering from a rare form of localized gigantism dubbed macrodystrophia lipomatosa. This condition boils down to the fact that abnormally large fat deposits are hidden across her limbs.

Doctors fear that, were they to try and remove these fat deposits, they might damage important nerves in the process. Simply put, 59-year-old Duangjay Samaksamam’s condition is pretty much incurable.

The woman says that, although some doctors have suggested that she turn to amputation, she has no intention to let doctors cut off her hands. As she put it, “Some doctors said the only solution was to cut off my hands if I wished to walk around freely. But I don't want to do that.”

According to plastic surgeon Dr. Eiju Uchinuma with Japan's Kitasato University, 59-year-old Duangjay Samaksamam is the first person in the world to have until now been documented to suffer from macrodystrophia lipomatosa from shoulders to fingers.

“This case is very rare. Both her arms are enlarged. Her arms and hands are enormous so they swell badly but it could be worse. My diagnosis is that she is the first and only person in the world who has Macrodystrophia Lipomatosa from shoulders to her fingers on both arms,” he said in a statement.