MEET BRIANNA PAITEL

Xperience Fitness Personal Trainer

I am beyond blessed with what I had endured in the past 9 years. I now truly appreciate and will never take for granted having, and demonstrating, a healthy lifestyle.  Growing up, I was always healthy and active, I was active until I was diagnosed with a rare disease that made physical activity nearly impossible.

Before getting sick, sports and fitness were a big passion of mine. I started competing on the dance team when I was 12 years old, and danced until my junior year of high school. Throughout these years, dance and fitness was my only way to escape the stress of my illness. I continued dancing until my health took over. As my health got worse, my body slowly started having difficulty with any physical activity, which resulted in having to stop dancing and doing any exercise at all.

As this disease progressed I was not able to climb a flight of stairs, and was almost completely bedridden with the sickness being in complete charge of my life. At school, I had to have someone walk with me in the halls in case I would pass out, as I did almost every day.

I had gone through endless hospital tests, and it took the doctors years to figure out what was going on. After 28 biopsies, at the end of sophomore year, I was diagnosed with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). POTS is a rare disease which causes most of your organs to be dysfunctional. POTS has no cure, and is a very debilitating disease. I was told that I should expect to never be able to work out again, climb another flight of stairs, and that I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I was not going to accept this, so we found alternative options.

My family and I attended a program at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota that taught patients how to live a life with POTS. During the time at Mayo Clinic we lived at the Ronald McDonald House and stayed there for a month.  While at Mayo clinic, I got my life back. I went through extensive physical therapy, occupational therapy, and also learned how to live my life with POTS. The program that I went through taught me rules that I need to follow every day, exercise being the number one priority. As I got closer to graduating the program, I had trained my body to progress in exercises. I starting with simple morning stretches and walking down the hall, and am now in the best physical shape that I have ever been.

Physical fitness is the number one aide in helping my body fight and live with POTS.  I live every day with fitness as my main goal. I still struggle with POTS on a daily basis, but have now trained my body to not let my sickness control me. Becoming a personal trainer and going through these struggles have helped me realize some struggles that other people may face, and how to better understand the importance of living the healthy lifestyle. Exercise and fitness has been, is, and forever will be a major part of my life and can now have the privilege of making it other peoples as well.

I am driven to help each and every person push past the obstacles that are in their own lives.  I can deeply understand the challenges people can face, and am extremely passionate about helping people move past challenges and succeed.