This is a phase II double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial evaluating the effect of gabapentin when added to standard pain management for patients with sickle cell disease experiencing acute pain crisis in the ambulatory care setting.

Sickle cell pain is different for every patient. Some patients get complete relief from routine pain medicines, and others need more time or more doses of pain medicines before the pain goes away completely. It is known that humans have many types of pain, including something called neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain in other conditions (such as diabetes) has been treated successfully with a medicine called gabapentin.

The investigators in this study suspect that some sickle cell pain is a combination of pain types. They would like to see if adding gabapentin to the usual pain medicines makes pain go away faster or more completely.

More information: clinicaltrials.gov, ITHANET Clinical Trials