- [Announcer] Natasha Coates
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- Doing gymnastics with a chronic illness
can be really difficult.
My body causes me to have
life threatening allergic reactions
so seemingly nothing.
So sweating or crying could be a trigger.
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I've nearly died from laughing too much with my friends.
But I love being able to fly through the air
and flip and twist and spin.
It's just something that feels really free to me.
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- My name's Natasha Coates
and I'm an elite disability gymnast.
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I was number one in the UK for four years running.
I have won 22 British titles
and 38 British medals.
I started gymnastics when I was eight years old
at my local recreational club.
And I've been doing gymnastics ever since.
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My condition didn't become severe till I was 18.
One day I went in anaphylactic shock.
It was completely out of the blue,
nobody knew what caused that.
Mast cell activation syndrome is a rare condition
that affects your immune system.
So when you get stung by a bee, and that's all,
you get a raised itchy bump,
that's from histamine,
which is released from the muscle.
My body does that when there's no trigger,
I can be sat in my room doing nothing, nothing's changed.
And the cells just sweat and release all those chemicals,
which send me in anaphylactic shock.
So just as somebody who had an allergy,
if they eat peanuts,
their throat would swell,
their tongue would swell,
they'll struggle to breathe
because you airway is shortening
and you feel like you just gonna suffocate to death.
And that is a real possibility with this condition.
They're some that are caused by triggers.
So I know things such as getting too hot or too cold
and cause a reaction.
Certain foods can be an issue,
strong smells,
strong emotions can be a trigger.
I'm literally allergic to everything.
(mumbles)
- Seeing me fitting.
Training time.
When I became unwell,
I still wanted to carry on.
I just wanted to adapt to it.
There can be a lot of contradicting points
between having mast cell activation syndrome and gymnastics.
My diet is quite restricted
am quite malnourished with iron
and things like that.
Sometimes the exercises can be really, really hard,
but I enjoy building up my strength
and seeing an improvement in myself.
Unfortunately it takes me quite a lot longer
than everybody else that's able bodied,
but that always makes the victory that a little bit sweeter.
Sometimes I do push myself too far
and I regret it and I ended up paying for it.
I have lost count of how many times I've been in hospitals.
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Its way over 500 times.
It works out on average every two weeks.
It's got to the stage where most of the staff know me
by my first name,
and I knew them by their first name.
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Thanks to social media.
I've been able to get in contact
with people that have the same condition as me.
Most of them are in America.
And we have this lovely little group
of about four or five of us.
I'm the only one from England.
And we are constantly joking about my accent between us
and they really are like my sisters.
Unfortunately, a couple of years ago,
one of the girls Taylor passed away.
She'd been quiet unwell,
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It was really hard
not just to lose my best friend,
but the reality of the condition that I'm living with.
'Cause as much as you can try
and make it as light as possible,
and that is life threatening
and the chances are it will kill me one day.
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Seeing the pain that I went through
when she passed and knowing that one day,
all the people that I love and care about,
are gonna feel that same pain.
It's a really hard thing to carry,
that's why sometimes I want to cut myself off
from the world.
So when it does happen,
it doesn't hurt them,
but I need them.
I need my friends and they need me,
if I had many conversations with them about it,
'cause we're very open.
They're just happy that I'm happy with what I'm doing.
And I'm really blessed to have them.
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It's not the metals that count for me,
it's the experience.
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I love to go out and perform and show people that
just because you're ill doesn't mean your life has to stop.
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