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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Friday, November 20, 2009
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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Friday, November 20, 2009
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Diabetes |
Prednisone and diabetes11/15/2006 |
With Polymyositis, prednisone 60 mg daily for 2 weeks and decrease by 10 mg every 2 weeks till none. Also methotrexate weekly increasing the dose. This is playing havoc with the glucose readings so taking insulin plus tablets. With a previous episode of Polymositis, I got IV prednisone 1000 mg for 5 days and insulin and no methotrexate. Would it not be better to take the IV for a shorter period Is this not having a negative effect on my pancreas??
I am afraid I can't follow all the details of your situation from the very abbreviated description you describe. Let me generalize however about people who have diabetes and another disease process which require recurrent, intermittent treatment involving a steroid like prednisone with or without another treatment that may have an effect on appetite.
It can be very trying to manage diabetes under a circumstance such as you describe. If there is a pattern to how the treatment with prednisone is given and it is repeated over and over, I usually advise people to learn as much as they can from each episode of treatment to improve how you manage the diabetes. I would do as detailed blood sugar testing as you can tolerate with the initial episodes and advance the diabetes treatment - in your case with insulin - very aggressively as you start the steroid dose until you find what amount prevents the rise in blood sugar with each steroid treatment. this is more difficult to do if the treatments vary in dose and duration or if the individual's underlying disease is varying quite a bit from one treatment to the next. I can't give specifics without knowing your individual situation, but I raise diabetes treatment doses much more rapidly when people receive treatment with steroids than when they are not receiving steroids. The more you can prevent a rise in blood sugar, the better a job your own pancreas function will do.
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Robert M. Cohen, MD Associate Professor Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism Department of Internal Medicine College of Medicine University of Cincinnati |
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