Pain is personal. It escapes the objective measurements of science and hides among the slippery subjective slopes of personality, attitude, beliefs, and emotion.” This inability to put a logical handle on pain is becoming increasingly frustrating as doctors struggle with multiplying medical syndromes. "Disability from pain has exploded in the past 50 years," says Robert Jamison, assistant professor of anesthesia and psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. "It's become an epidemic."

Throughout the generations, pain has been a unique, often misunderstood condition that affects every age, gender, ethnic and social group all over the world. It can occur for many reasons, and there is no one "silver bullet" that can cure pain. Yet great progress in pain medicine has been made in recent years and is expected to advance further as doctors learn more about the causes of pain.