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Gwenn Herman began suffering from constant aches and pains after a car crash in 1995.

Doctors were not much help. Surgery, medical procedures and medication did not take away the pain. She felt isolated from her family and was not able to pick up her young children.

While researching other options, she realized many people were suffering like she was.

Hermann founded Pain Connection, a nonprofit group designed to reach out to others like her living with chronic pain, in 1999. Its first meeting was April of that year. It now offers 11 support groups in Maryland and Virginia, and a host of other services.

Ten years later, Hermann estimates the organization has helped 2,000 people – maybe more with the Internet – turn their pain into strength.

And with the recent move to the Nonprofit Village in Rockville, she hopes the new Chronic Pain Outreach Center will reach even more by expanding the organization's services.

"Because pain is invisible, people don't see it," said Herman, 56, a Potomac resident who is a licensed clinical social worker. "But it really affects everyone — friends, family — not just the person in pain."

Migdalia Isicoff, a member of a Pain Connection support group in Columbia, said the organization has provided her with an invaluable service. She has suffered with rheumatoid arthritis since she was 3 years old.

"It gives me the energy and inspiration to explore what I can do as far as improving my quality of life despite having this condition," Isicoff said.

The Clarksville resident does all she can to spread the word about the organization's services.

"This is something that I wish was more visible so it could be shared better," Isicoff said. "There are a lot of us who have chronic pain and many people don't know the group exists."

Herman and Mary French, president of Pain Connection's board of directors, also co-authored a book, "Making the Invisible Visible: Chronic Pain Manual for Health Care Providers."

She said Pain Connection will also continue to work in partnership with the American Pain Foundation to advocate for a national pain policy, appropriate pain care and public awareness in the Power Over Pain Action Network.

"I think the best thing we do is give people answers," she said. "And we look forward to many more years of doing just that."

For more information, visit www.painconnection.org.