While patients suffering myocardial infarction receive aggressive pain management, those with pain from sickle cell crises seem to receive much less attention. Patients report being dissatisfied with their pain management and difficulty with obtaining ordered analgesics. They often feel their complaints of pain are not taken seriously. 2 Nurses do not deliberately ignore sickle cell pain. Many nurses fear that the patient will become addicted to pain medications, although that is unlikely.
Drug tolerance occurs when increasing doses of medication are needed to obtain the same pain relief.
Drug dependence occurs if withdrawal symptoms develop when a narcotic is suddenly stopped. Although SCA patients commonly develop both tolerance and dependence, this does not necessarily lead to addiction. 2 Addiction has behavioral and psychological components that are absent with tolerance and dependence. Addicted people will use a drug to relieve psychological symptoms even when physical pain is gone. Addiction occurs in less than 1 percent of people with no history of substance abuse.