"agonizing problem" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is often used to describe a difficult or painful problem that causes distress or anxiety. Example: "The nation is facing an agonizing problem of rising unemployment, leaving many families struggling to make ends meet."
This presents an agonizing problem to the architect assigned to design an addition, for no addition can truly respect this aspect of the Breuer building's character.
This has posed an agonizing problem for Jewish legislators who do not want to have to choose between Israel and the president.
But, he said to me, foreign-language pronunciation, which is prized as essential to the artistry of opera, had been an agonizing problem for him throughout college at the music school of the University of Hartford and in the graduate program at Florida State's conservatory.
Corpse calculus The agonizing problem of valuing human life after an accident ("Human values," June 14, p. 189) has no easy solution.
The Pentagon wouldn't be facing this agonizing problem if President Obama had made good on his promise in his first term to close Guantanamo and move its inmates (now numbering 166) either to foreign countries or to a secure prison in the United States.
For them, food was no longer a joy and a pleasure, but became an agonizing problem.
They finally rid themselves of the agonizing Ken Griffey Jr. problem, but Alex Rodriguez has them biting their nails, so a little thing like a manager is not going to faze them.
One of the agonizing characteristics of the problem is that it does not have to exist.
Implicit in these problems is the agonizing question of when to forgo treatment, a problem that also confronts those caring for gravely ill adults like Karen Ann Quinlan, who died last week after a decade in a coma.
A single mother tells of her agonizing relationship with her wild, abusive teenage daughter and her encounters with the subculture of problem children.
If the smartest young American filmmakers had a problem with Hollywood, it was because Hollywood wasn't filming the most obvious and most agonizing aspects of daily life; and if the smartest young French filmmakers didn't have a problem with Hollywood, it was because the facts Hollywood wasn't filming weren't ones that were present to their eyes.
