Type 2 Diabetes and Steroids

Steroids definitely a problem for diabetics.

They hang around in your system for ages. You can't stop taking them and expect your levels to go back to normal. I was on 40mg of prednisolone for ages. I jumped up and down for 6 months until I got insulin.

As I reduced my dosage, so my levels came down. However, as soon as you take your eye off the ball, your levels can take off again.

In my case, there seemed to be a 2 week lag, then the my numbers started to rise again.. Recently, I got down to 10mg and went 2 weeks without insulin and then my numbers started to rise again. So now I accept this, when my GP receives a letter from my neuro, I will gradually reduce to 5mg. In the meantime, I am takin the odd squirt of insulin. Hopefully things will resolve in the next few months.

Steroids are nasty and unpredictable I was on 40mg for about fifteen years though was for short periods on higher doses now down to 15mg but that's as low as my neuro predicts it going at the moment trouble with prednisolone is it interferes with the liver's sensitivity to insulin so the liver dumps glucose into your system most of the time but this activity can wax and wain as at times for some reason it stops reducing the liver's sensitivity for a while and so the liver gets hit with all that insulin it never knew was there and totally shuts down glucose production and you can as I have experienced on the odd occasion end up with a drop in blood sugar and end up with a hypo well this is how it was explained to me so with changes in prednisolone doses you can get wildly unpredictable variations in BG especially if you are trying to control things with very low carbohydrate levels in your diet.

I had been normal after about 3 days, but I have heard a few people say it took them a couple of weeks for it to leave their system. But I stay away from them as even 5 mg will put my numbers above 16 mmol and it's just too scary to control unless it's an emergency. 24 and 29 mmol is very high. Sometimes they are a necessity but the high blood sugars can cause their own risks as it thickens your blood.