Citation

Alao AO, Westmoreland N, Jindal S. Int. J. Psychiatry Med. 2003; 33(1): 97-101.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse NY 13210, USA. Alaoa@upstate.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12906347

Abstract

There has been widespread speculation that patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) may become drug dependent if their painful crisis is treated with narcotics. However, there has been no scientific evidence to support this assertion. Paradoxically, individuals suffering from sickle cell disease who are not adequately treated may develop an addiction to narcotics due to self-medication to treat their pain. In this article, we describe a 38-year-old African American woman who became addicted to cocaine due to self-medication of her sickle cell pain with cocaine.

Language: en