Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder associated with significant morbidity, which includes severe episodic pain, and, often, chronic pain. Compared to healthy individuals, patients with SCD report enhanced sensitivity to thermal detection and pain thresholds and have altered inflammatory profiles, yet no studies to date have examined biomarker reactivity following laboratory-induced pain. We sought to examine this relationship in SCD patients compared to healthy control participants. We completed quantitative sensory testing (QST) in 83 patients with SCD and sequential blood sampling in 27 of them, whom we matched (sex, age, race, BMI, education) to 27 healthy controls. Surprisingly, few QST differences emerged between groups. Heat pain tolerance, pressure pain threshold at the trapezius, thumb and quadriceps, and thermal temporal summation at 45°C differed between groups in the expected direction, while conditioned pain modulation and pain ratings to hot water hand immersion were counterintuitive, possibly due to tailoring the water temperature to a perceptual level; SCD patients received milder temperatures. In the matched subsample, group differences and group by time interactions were observed in biomarkers including TNFα, IL-1β, IL-4, and NPY. These findings highlight the utility of laboratory pain testing methods for understanding individual differences in inflammatory cytokines. Our findings suggest amplified pain-evoked pro-inflammatory cytokine reactivity among patients with SCD relative to carefully matched controls. Future research is warranted to evaluate the impact of enhanced pain-related cytokine response and whether it is predictive of clinical characteristics and the frequency/severity of pain crises in SCD patients.