From The Washington Post:
They regularly visit doctors’ offices complaining of baffling combinations of symptoms for which no medical cause can be found: chest pain one month, gynecologic problems the next, followed by headaches or crushing fatigue.
Hospital staff privately refer to them as “crocks” — people who repeatedly show up in emergency rooms demanding expensive, exhaustive tests to unearth the elusive cause of their numerous symptoms. Reassurance that their tests don’t show anything amiss has the opposite effect, convincing these patients that physicians haven’t looked hard enough — or don’t believe them. Most are women who develop the lifelong disorder during adolescence.
More here.