Woman who gained weight despite healthy diet finds watermelon-sized cyst inside her

A 22-year-old woman who ballooned to a size 20 despite eating well and exercising was shocked to find a 12kg cyst the size of a watermelon growing inside her. 

Leah Stafford, from the UK, began to worry when the weight continued to pile on, despite a healthy diet and regular exercise. 

She claims that doctors told her there was “nothing to worry about”, but a trip to the hospital showed that she had a 12-inch-wide cyst - which was potentially fatal as it was pressing on vital organs - growing inside her. 

She explained: "I had started dieting but I just seemed to be gaining weight if anything and a few people had asked me how far gone I was which took me back, it made no sense.

"I was trying to lose weight yet I was going up in dress sizes rather than down and couldn't understand what I was doing wrong.”

Stafford was rushed to hospital when she started suffering from severe stomach pain.

“When I first got to Sheffield Northern General they thought it was appendicitis,” she said. “I was given painkillers and oral morphine to take the pain away and discharged.

"When I arrived home the pain intensified and I couldn't move or sleep, so I decided to go to Chesterfield Royal Hospital for a second opinion.

"Within 30 minutes they had put me on a ward and told me they were going to do some scans. It was through the scans they found the huge cyst inside of me, I couldn't believe it."

Stafford had surgery to remove 13 litres of fluid from the cyst, and lost nearly two stone immediately after the procedure. 

However, the young woman is now concerned that she may not be able to start a family with her fiance Richard Mason, 24, as doctors had to remove one of her ovaries.