Pain is a common symptom in sickle cell disease, but it’s not the same for everyone.
As a child, your parent helped you understand and talk about your pain.
As an adult, you will need to be able to tell your provider about your pain
on your own. It is helpful to know the common language that is used to talk about pain.
People who have sickle cell disease can have pain that is NOT caused by sickled red blood cells.
For example, you can have pain because of muscle strain or joint problems like arthritis. These types of pain can happen every day and affect your ability to do the things you enjoy.
Sickle cell pain comes on suddenly and can last for hours or days. Pain that lasts for longer than 7 days is probably not sickle cell pain and should be treated differently. Being able to talk about different types of pain can help your health care provider give you the best treatment for the kind of pain you are having.
Pain scales are often used during an appointment, in the emergency room, and in the hospital to help measure the amount of pain that you have.
It‘s good to use a pain scale so that you and your provider have a common point of reference as you work together to manage your pain.
One common pain scale uses “faces.” With this tool, you pick the face that best shows how you feel.
Another common pain scale asks you to rate your pain on a level between zero and ten, with zero being no pain and ten being the worst pain you can imagine.
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