Steroid induced diabetes??!

Welcome to the Diabetes Forum, Rose*flo. Yes, of course it's fine to post here! I hope we can help! Here is what I found about Entocort side effects: www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-22007/entocort-ec-oral/details#side-effects

If you've taken other steroids before, especially for long periods of time, then it's possible that you could be having problems with blood sugar. Normally when these drugs are prescribed, the doctor warns the patient and sometimes may even put the patient on diabetes drugs temporarily while taking the steroids.

The only way to know if your blood sugar is not normal is by blood tests. I don't know about symptoms like you're describing appearing suddenly, but since you're experiencing some strange symptoms, tell your doctor when you see him tomorrow.

I know that if a patient has a family history of diabetes that sometimes steroids can be a tipping point. Better to look into this now! I hope your doctor's visit can give you some answers!

Sorry I wasn't online last night to see your post. Don't worry about fasting or not. They can do a random blood sugar test right then when you're in the office and another blood test which measures the average blood sugar over the previous three months (called the A1c). If either of those are elevated, then I would think the doctor would want to check further and might have you do a fasting blood test.

Good luck today and I hope you can get some answers to why you're having these symptoms! Keep us updated!

I was on Prednisone about half the time for two years. During this time I developed elevated blood sugar from the steroids. Yes, essentially steroid-induced diabetes. Once I was able to get off the steroids, my sugars returned to normal. Several years later, after I'd been on Entocort for about three years, my glucose moved into the diabetic range again. This time, it didn't resolve when I came off the steroid. I've been completely off steroids since early in 2006, but still have type II diabetes. Steroids are the gift that keeps on giving.

Jujub, that's great you were able to finally get off the steroids! May I ask what dose Entocort you were on for 3 years? I have been on 9mg since August

I was on 9mg. (the maximum recommended dose). It's especially annoying because it never really helped me, and it gave me osteonecrosis in my shoulder as well as diabetes. At the time, I don't think those side effects were documented. I started seeing reports of both at the time I was developing problems. After my first surgery for the osteonecrosis, I knew I had to get off steroids. I was scheduled to start Remicade, and tapered off the Entocort before I started the Remi.

I see that you're allergic to Remicade. Have you tried Humira or another TNF-inhibitor? Remi allergies are often related to the mouse protein in the drug, where Humira is grown in human tissue and contains no foreign proteins. Often people who develop allergies to Remi can tolerate and be helped by one of these other medications.