The Bachelorette alum Trista Rehn has opened up about husband Ryan Sutter’s “very scary” battle with Lyme disease.
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Trista, 51, shared how Ryan is doing “better” in his ongoing fight with Lyme disease during a recent appearance on “The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever with Chris Harrison.”
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Trista noted that Ryan is able to “push through” the worst of his symptoms and so “it’s very scary” when he “succumbs to it” and announces that he’s in pain or feeling ill.
“He definitely has a lot of ups and downs still and really would like to feel better at least most of the time. He says that he’s about 80 percent,” Trista told The Bachelor franchise’s former host.
“I would go to his doctor’s appointments with him because he is so incredibly humble. too So he’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to complain about whatever’s going on with me,’ even if it’s really significant.”
The original The Bachelorette star, who attended The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s wedding in January with Ryan and their children, continued, “I would tell his doctors, ‘You don’t understand, he has an incredibly high pain tolerance.’ So if it was me that was going through what he’s going through, I would be bedridden every single day and maybe even hospitalized.”
Trista praised her husband for being able to “get through this” because “he’s freaking superhuman,” adding, “I don’t understand it.”
Trista explained how she’s “never understood” Ryan’s high level of athleticism but she’s “grateful” for it. Ryan is apparently still working hard and even has the energy sometimes to climb mountains.
“I’m grateful because had he not had the kind of tolerance he has, it would’ve been even harder. And it still is,” Trista shared.
Ryan, who won Trista Rehn’s final rose on The Bachelorette’s first season, was diagnosed with Lyme disease in May 2021 after he had been suffering from various symptoms for months prior.
Ryan had been desperate for answers after undergoing tests for nearly a year to find out why he had been feeling so ill and fatigued.
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Ryan explained on Trista’s “Better, Etc.” podcast how doctors said his body had been weakened from exposure to mold toxins and so he was unable to fight Lyme disease.
“[Lyme disease] seems like something that I will always have. Now I know, and I can build back my immune system to fight it off,” Ryan explained.
Ryan had also reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 during the pandemic in 2020 as well as Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis.
Ryan graduated from firefighter training in June 2021, just weeks after revealing his Lyme disease diagnosis in Spring 2021.
Ryan had to take time off from his firefighting job in Denver, CO, to take care of himself, but he returned to work in January 2022.
“I took a walk today. After two major surgeries and nearly six months, yesterday was my first day back in the firehouse. So I walked and I reflected. It was a good day back on the job,” Ryan wrote via Instagram at the time.
Trista and Ryan have two teenage children together: son Maxwell Alston and daughter Blakesley Grace.
Trista — who found fame when she competed on Alex Michel’s season of The Bachelor in 2002 — chose Ryan at the final Rose Ceremony of her The Bachelorette season over runner-up Charlie Maher.
Ryan proposed marriage to Trista on The Bachelorette’s first-season finale, which aired on ABC in February 2003 and drew over 30 million viewers.
Trista, a former Dancing with the Stars and Fear Factor contestant, changed her last name from Rehn to Sutter when she married Ryan in December 2003.
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Trista & Ryan’s Wedding’s two-hour finale — which featured the couple’s wedding ceremony and reception at the Lodge in Rancho Mirage resort in Palm Springs, CA — drew over 17 million viewers when it aired on ABC on December 10, 2003.
Trista and Ryan welcomed Maxwell in July 2007 followed by Blakesley in April 2009.
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.