Chronic intractable non-malignant pain, including such functional disorders as irritable bowel syndrome is now recognized as a significant problem in children and adolescents, with potential long-term impact on the child's physical, social, and academic functioning, as well as on the family as a whole. A recent study of more than 5000 Dutch school children under 18 found that more than 25% reported suffering recurrent or continuous pain for more than 3 months, with the prevalence increasing with age; and a survey of 735 German children aged 10-18 using a modified version of the same instrument found the same for 45.5%. The most common types of pain in these two studies were headache, abdominal pain, limb pain, and back pain. This data would appear to confirm earlier estimates that recurrent headache, including migraine, occurs in 11% to 26% of children ages 7-15; recurrent abdominal pain in 10-15% and recurrent limb pain in 4-18% in children ages 7-15. Many such children apparently continue to function effectively, attending school and continuing normal activities, with medical intervention only for acute episodes. A smaller, but significant, number, however, find themselves unable to self-manage their pain. They become patients with chronic pain and disability, falling into a cyclical pattern of pain, impaired functioning in physical, school, social, and even family and self-care domains, "doctor-seeking" and over-utilization of medications, and psychosocial distress, including anxiety and depression.