Nigeria has a very high number of sickle cell disease (SCD) population
with addition of 150,000 babies born annually with the disease. Early infant
diagnosis and good care make many of these babies survive to adulthood. Severe
pain requiring moderately strong or very strong analgesics is a common
presentation of patients with Sickle Cell Anaemia. Paediatricians find ready
usefulness of Opioids which are very useful for the painful episodes among these patients. Therefore,
the chances of abuse and addiction to these medications become very high and
constitute additional burden on the deficient manpower in the health sector.
Opioid Use Disorder among Sickle Cell Disease patients has subtle presentation,
so a high index of suspicion is required to make
both the diagnosis and referral to treatment centres. In this review, the epidemiology, pain pathophysiology,
behavioural and pharmacologic therapy have been re-examined.
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