We were lucky to catch up with Brianna Shortt recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brianna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

When I was struggling with chronic pain, I was constantly looking for two things: a guide to getting out of pain and for hope that it was even possible to get out of pain. Instead, I found doctors who seemed to have very little understanding on how to effectively treat chronic pain and pessimistic people who acted as if chronic pain is an incurable disease. After a lot of searching and effort, I found healthcare professionals, strategies, and techniques that got me out of pain. After this experience, I had a desire to share everything I learned with people who still have chronic pain. So I created Chronic Pain Hope. This is an online resource that is meant to serve as an educational guide to finding the way out of chronic pain and a constant source of hope. The site is filled with tons of free education on all the ways that chronic pain can be effectively treated. There are interviews with people who have recovered from chronic pain and interviews with medical experts who have had success with treating chronic pain. The goal is for people to be able to look at my website and know that there is a way out of constant and uncontrollable pain. Pain is something that can be significantly diminished and even cured at times.
I also hope that people who read this site will recognize the importance of using a biopsychosocial approach to treat chronic pain, rather than a purely biomedical approach which is what most healthcare practitioners use to approach the treatment of chronic pain. A biopsychosocial approach involves using a multimodal approach to decrease pain. This involves using a combination of medications, physical therapy, psychological therapies, lifestyle changes, and even alternative methods to treat chronic pain. A biomedical approach uses a more narrow strategy to treat chronic pain through the use of medications, physical therapy, and procedures. Both of these approaches have the potential to reduce pain, but the biopsychosocial approach is successful more often than a biomedical approach.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In 2020 (during the Pandemic lockdowns), I graduated from nursing school. I was so excited to start working in a hospital and do my part during the pandemic. Yet a few weeks after passing my boards, I developed an extreme sense of pain that radiated from my lower back down to my thighs. I thought that I just needed to rest and the pain would disappear in a few days. This did not happen. My pain became worse every day. I could no longer work and I lost my job. I then started a two-year journey of doctors’ appointments, flare-ups, depression and anxiety, medications, physical therapy, and treatments that eventually led to pain relief. During this journey, I learned that our healthcare system is not designed to treat people with chronic pain, despite the fact that chronic pain is estimated to affect 1/5 of every Americans. I realized that even when I was in nursing school, we had brushed over chronic pain in one lecture and never talked about it again. Now as a nurse, I have learned that the average nurse and doctor know very little about chronic pain and how it even works.
Yet I have also discovered so much hope for those with chronic pain. I now know that there are several organizations that have high levels of success with significantly decreasing chronic pain. I know that the International Association for the Study of Pain is working towards providing patients with better chronic pain treatments. I know which treatments are worth the time, money, and effort and which ones are the least likely to work. This is the type of information I share on www.chronicpainhope.com. Chronic Pain Hope has been designed to provide patients with the knowledge and resources that our healthcare system is failing to provide patients with.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I had recently started attending a church in Huntington Beach. I didn’t know anyone there and I felt a little unsure about the place. The church was offering a lunch for newcomers to the church. I didn’t really feel like going, but I felt like God wanted me to be there. When I showed up, there was only one other person there. He was 6’5″ and friendly with every person he interacted with. He had the personality and demeanor of a successful businessman. I had expected a bigger turnout, but some leaders from the church were also there so it wasn’t awkward. We talked about our lives. I learned that his name was Drew and he had a lot of experience with business and marketing. A few days later we met up at a coffee shop and I pitched him my idea for Chronic Pain Hope. He absolutely loved the idea. I had been working on Chronic Pain Hope for a year at this point and I knew that I needed the help of someone who understood business way better than I did. Drew believed in my idea more than anyone else and he was willing to dedicate time, energy, and money to the business. Ever since then, he has been my business partner and I could not ask for anyone better.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had always believed that the healthcare industry was designed to take care of all of the needs of people with health problems. All through nursing school I was convinced that the American healthcare system provided the absolute best healthcare possible to every person walking into a hospital. Now as someone who has been both the patient and healthcare worker, I can say that this could not be farther from the truth. Our healthcare is designed to make money while providing healthcare that provides high-quality services to those with easy-to-treat conditions. If you have something like appendicitis, a broken arm, or an injury that can be fixed with a simple surgery or some physical therapy, then congratulations because our healthcare system has been optimized to fix these types of problems. On the other hand, if you have something that is difficult to diagnose or a chronic condition like chronic pain or an autoimmune disorder, then your journey through the healthcare system may be a bit more difficult. The reality is that doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are trained to look at all health conditions from a purely biological perspective. This means we are great at looking at lab work, CT scans, and anything that can show us structural abnormalities. Yet we have not been trained to recognize how powerful the brain is and how it deeply influences both our physical and mental health. The brain can cause minor stomach aches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and severe pain anywhere in the body. The mainstream healthcare system fails to treat conditions that are caused by the mind-body connection. This means we are failing a large percentage of patients who have these types of conditions.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chronicpainhope.com
• Instagram: chronic.pain.hope