What do you do when something in your body feels wrong but the doctors can't find anything?

SGT (Join to see) - Make certain you are seeing an "attending physician" with decades of experience - not an intern or resident. Do your own search for answers using both consumer tools (e.g. Google, WebMD, etc) and medical tools (PubMed, ScienceDirect, etc). Sometimes seeing a physician diagnostic specialist helps. I wonder what kind of symptoms you are having that bring about this question. Warmest Regards, Sandy :)

Keep the log as Crafton suggested, and also consider your mind and attitude. How you think can have a profound impact on how you feel.

One thing that's very helpful, if you can (and I know it's hard in the military) is to develop a good relationship with one Primary Care Physician (PCP). I was fortunate to have a very caring PCP for many years. I started having these weird things happening to me in 2000, then some seriously bad things in 2005, then even worse things in 2008 that totally disabled me. Along the way, tests couldn't find anything wrong. Sometimes they showed something; other times they went back to normal. I developed some other very serious physical signs they could see on MRI, but they had no idea how they were connected.

Doctors, specialists and psychiatrists at the VA thought it was just all in my head, but the civilian doctors who my PCP sent me to were told, "My patient has the real deal. I've seen him for years and I've seen the physical changes this disease or illness has caused. It's not a psychological ailment, it's physiological. Please give him help." I also had seen a mental health counselor for my PTSD long before I started getting sick. She was able to help me after I started getting ill, and knew that this was truly something "real", and not something that wa springing from my "mind."

Long story short, the civilian doctors pursued the physical issues, determined all the elements and ruled that I had Gulf War Illness (GWI), a series of undiagnosed illnesses and chronic multisymptom illnesses from exposures encountered during the Gulf War. As hard as the VA pushed back, they finally had had to agree, at least the medical side (VHA) that I have GWI. The benefits side (VBA) is still fighting with me; nine years now for my claim and still waiting for a Board of Veterans Appeals docket number.

But having that relationship with a single doctor can make a big difference.