Chronic chest pain impacts millions of Americans every year.

Around 40,000 people each year will suffer from this rarely diagnosed disease, but many people don't know it exists.

"We know that roughly five percent of non-ischemic chest pain is pericarditis," Cleveland Clinic Director of the Pericardial Center Dr. Allan Klein said. "It's only point one percent of admissions to the hospital with pericarditis."

Pericarditis is the inflammation of the sac that surrounds the heart, which causes sharp chest pain and, in some cases, difficulty breathing. But sometimes it keeps coming back.

"So the biggest cause of, we call, recurrent pericarditis is under-treatment of the acute episode," Klein said.

There were no guidelines to treat pericarditis in the United States, until now. Klein worked with 22 experts all over the world to publish a consensus.

"This allows us in one place to have recommendations from all these experts, how you diagnose it and how you treat this," Klein said.

The statement details how to utilize different types of imaging in diagnosis, and what to look for if there is improvement.

"There is hope. With the proper diagnostic testing, with the proper therapeutics. People will get better," Klein said.

If you are being treated for pericarditis, discuss with your doctor if you need to stop exercising.

Klein says people with pericarditis need to keep their heart rate below 100 BPM. However, there are some treatments such as IL1 blockers that can allow exercise after a month.