Steriod use

Do steriods effect everyone’s blood sugar or just diabetic’s? My daughter is on budesonide now for her asthma. I took her fasting this morning and it was 140 :hushed:. We are monitoring her for early onset T1D, her body still make insulin and her fasting isn’t usually that high… normal or concerning?

Several years ago my elderly dog had a skin condition. The vet gave him Prednisone, and within a week Pepper developed Type 1 diabetes, with a BG of over 600. The vet said, rather nonchalantly, that that “happens sometimes.” He was on insulin until he died a year or so later (again, he was elderly and had several conditions.) Sometimes steroids are needed, but I’d keep a very close eye on it. (I hope I don’t offend you with a comparison to a dog. Insulin was discovered from research on dogs.) Best wishes to your daughter.

Have you Googled steroids and blood sugar?

My T2 wife suffers with COPD and bronchitis outbreaks. Her pulmonary doc puts her on steroids when she has a bronchitis breakout. When on steroids, She needs to inject insulin.

I believe, non diabetic’s pancreases can adjust to steroid induced BGs, but it may take longer to bring the BGs back to normal levels.

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So there is a difference between topical steroids that go on the skin, lungs, nose, and so on and systemic steroids that come as a shot or a pill.

My understanding is that topical steroids generally don’t have much effect on blood sugar, although it’s always possible. I’ve taken steroid inhalers, eye drops, nasal spray, swallowed (for throat), cream, and gotten a steroid shot. The eye drops seemed to affect my blood sugar a bit, but the others didn’t. I noticed no effects at all from the shot, though I think that’s rather unusual as many people report blood sugar chaos following a steroid shot. I think the allergies it was treating were having a greater impact on my blood sugar than the steroids, so my blood sugar actually seemed to improve. I’ve never been on steroid pills.

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As a person who has both RA and T1D, I will echo some of the two comments above. Typically topical steroid cream has little impact on blood sugar. It can happen sometimes but not much and not often.

We know that ingesting steroids can have a dramatic impact on diabetes, but also anyone who uses them. Just for grins I took my wife’s BS when she was using steroids at one paint. Her blood sugar like mine when I use steroids was elevated.

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