Budesonide and bloodwork- stupid mistake

Hi all, I’ve been off budesonide for about 5-6 weeks so I was going to do some bloodwork ordered months ago in response to complaints about exhaustion. Basically GP said being on steroids would make it difficult to interpret results and I would neees to be off for a month plus before getting it done. I have an appointment on Monday.

I stared imuran on Saturday. Gastro gave me prescription for budesonide to accompany it if I need it, and told me to not waiting til i “bottom out”. My UC has been horrible lately so I decided to go back on the budesonide. Took 9 mg today.

Question:

Will 5 days of budesonide **** with my bloodwork? If so, can I stop the budesonide immediately and resume once I do the blood work? I know you’re not supposed to stop steroids without tapering but I’m not sure of the risk of one days worth.

Help! I’m dumb.

Ewok89 said...
Will 5 days of budesonide **** with my bloodwork? If so, can I stop the budesonide immediately and resume once I do the blood work?

Yes, one dose messes with your blood numbers, and that only matters if your doctor needs one of the values that the steroid messes with. Otherwise, no worries. You're taking the steroid for a reason, please do not stop it.

Corticosteroids:

- Increase blood glucose (sugar), to maximum ranges or above for your test. It can look pre-diabetic or diabetic.

- Increase hemoglobin and red cell content of blood.

- Increase polymorphonuclear leukocytes in blood.

- Decrease lymphocytes, eosinophils, monocytes, and basophils. A single dose of cortisol results in a 70% decrease in lymphocytes and a 90% decrease in monocytes, occurring 4 to 6 h after treatment and persisting for about 24 h.

Ceasing can take 1-3 days or more for your numbers to return to normal. Not worth stopping for that long.

Source: /www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK13780/