Well, I have a similar situation - my sister has had extreme pain for several years. More recently she has had both knees and a hip replaced, each time with a flair-up of the pain which is in areas other than the operation site. No-one would listen to her or me about this and ended up telling her she was a) a drama queen and/or b) had a drug habit. It's been a nightmare.

Recently I learned about a condition called RSD. Never heard of it before but it came up on another forum. I did a lot of hunting around on the internet (as one does!) and realised with some shock, that these symptoms were exactly what my sister is suffering from. I was prepared to consider that the lack of care from her doctors during her three surgeries (five if you count the two pre-TKR arthroscopies) as being due to a lack of knowledge of the condition on their part. Only now, just a few days ago, I have discovered they are perfectly well aware of it, just had never considered it as a possibility! I am speechless! When I asked them if they thought it possible, they just lifted their shoulders and responded 'quite possibly' and that was it! I think they are not prepared to go forward with it because I suggested it! If they'd thought of it themselves would be a whole different scenario.

But as you say, we know they are sometimes unwilling to be the recipient of this information and even less willing to act on the information when it is presented. Yet we still need to get treatment from them.
It's tough .....