There are no determining pain relief risk factors which indicate why some people are more susceptible to chronic pain than others. Those with specific diseases are likely to experience chronic pain, such as fibromyalgia, systemic lupus, multiple sclerosis, shingles, and bone diseases.

These diseases, and others, often cause painful symptoms. Relieving the symptoms of chronic pain as it relates to disease can often allow a patient to effectively deal with other concerns related to their disease. Pain can inhibit a patient's ability to do vital therapies, and in severe cases, can even keep them from seeing their doctor regularly.

Chronic pain is simply to diagnose. The causative factors for the pain may or may not be easy to diagnose.

When a patient presents with localized chronic pain, such as pain that is consistently in the knee, testing begins at the site of localization. X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging, blood tests to rule out unseen tumors or autoimmune causes, bone scans, and patient examinations can help to narrow down the cause of the pain. Chronic migraines can be caused by dietary issues, tumors, head trauma, or stress factors.

When there is no determining factor for pain in a localized area, various blood and urine tests can rule out diseases. It is not unheard of for a patient to have experienced chronic pain for no apparent reason, only to have it disappear once a seemingly unrelated physical issue has been dealt with effectively.

Chronic tooth decay, perpetual constipation, overmedication, and other carious factors can create chronic pain in sensitive patients. Many of these patients have been told that their pain had a psychological cause.