I was searching for a link to an article I downloaded last year in .pdf format and found this wonderful article. It's a little old, published in the April 2005 issue of the Journal of Arthritis & Rheumatism, but I thought it gave an excellent explanation of all the processes involved in pain.
What really caught my eye was this statement, in the section regarding the treatment of the pain.
"To date, pharmacologic treatments, such as simple analgesics and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, have been the main focus of rheumatology pain management. Rheumatologists, in general, are not experienced in the management of chronic pain beyond this simple paradigm."
This is exactly why I think it's so important that those of us suffering with pain that is not being effectively treated by our Rheumies need to seek help from a qualified Pain Mgmt Doc.
Here's a link to the article. I hope it'll work.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/112166113/HTMLSTART