Doctors are frustrated by what they can't "fix"

In 25 years of caring for her chronically sick husband, who was injured in an industrial accident, Ann Jacobs, 62, of Laramie, Wyo., has watched physicians struggle with the trial-and-error progress of his treatment. "Doctors are programmed for success stories," she says.

Chronic Pain Is a Disease

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Meanwhile, because of its complexity, pain treatment has emerged as a separate, multidisciplinary specialty. That's good, but pain patients often need to get to a pain specialist through their primary care physicians.

Emotions can cloud the diagnosis
The emotional effects of chronic pain may also make diagnosis more difficult. Maggie Buckley, 46, from Walnut Creek, Calif., learned this the hard way. She suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic tissue disorder that leaves her with chronically painful joints.

"If you say 'it's really depressing and upsetting me, I'm in so much pain,'" Buckley says, "doctors will see it in terms of emotion and treat it as an emotional problem, referring you to psychiatric care or antidepressants." That is sometimes the appropriate treatment route, because antidepressants can treat chronic pain and there is a link between pain and depression, but you need to stand your ground and make sure any treatment is addressing your specific problems.