Watch 23-Year-Old Gymnast Speak Out About Her Severe Allergy!
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A 23-year-old gymnast who is allergic to nearly everything has opened up about her rare disorder and revealed how anything from bad weather to her own hair can kill her.
Natasha Coates from Nottingham, England, is suffering from mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), an immunological disorder that causes her body to come up with allergic reactions to various triggers.
In the young gymnast’s case, the condition is so severe that Natasha is allergic even to her own hair and tears.
“Reactions can vary. They can be anything from just feeling under the weather, itchy, very tired or they can be life-threatening like tongue and throat swelling,” the 23-year old revealed.
“One day I could eat a cheese sandwich and I will be fine. I could eat the exact thing the next day and it could try and kill me. And the day after I could eat it again and it will be fine. I don’t know what I’m going to react to next.
“There are so many things I react to; changes in temperature, I react to bath products, beauty products, deodorants, sprays, different make-ups, things around the house.
“I am not able to do most things most 22-year-olds do. I can’t drink alcohol. I can’t even tolerate it on my skin. I never know if I am going to make it if I will be sleeping in my own bed or be in a hospital bed. Or even if I will survive, to be honest.”
In order to protect her daughter to the best of her ability, Adele, the girl’s mother, regularly cleans the house and only cooks certain types of foods that have a good history when it comes to Natasha’s records of her condition.
“To reduce the chance of Coates having a reaction I tend to be over-zealous with the cleaning, dusting, wiping surfaces down, making sure people wash their hands when they come to the house,” the concerned mother said.
As the gymnast claimed, she had been living a perfectly normal life until she reached 18 years old. That’s when the symptoms of MCAS started showing up one after another.
“Towards the end of 2012 I started getting allergic reactions to fruit,” Natasha recalled.
Refusing to let her condition ruin her passion, Natasha became a disability gymnast and competed in Disability British Championships.
“I have done gymnastics since the age of eight, just recreationally,” she explained.
“And when I developed this condition I wasn’t able to keep up with the mainstream gymnastics so I switched to disability.
“There are lots of barriers when I exercise because of the way chemicals affect my brain. I lose the feeling from my elbows down and my knees down. So, when I stand on the beam, I can’t feel my feet, I can only look at the beam to know where they are.
“I think quite a lot of people don’t see me as disabled, that can be quite frustrating when I need adaptations.
“I get the ‘you don’t look sick’ or ‘you don’t look disabled’ look because they can’t see if I’m in pain, they can’t see my organs swelling internally and things like that.”
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