Adrenal supression (kenalog injection)

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I had really bad sinus pressure and pain, i saw my primary care doctor on 12/28/18 and he game me a shot of dexamethasone 4 mg/mL injection solution, triamcinolone acetonide 40 mg/mL suspension for injection. this worked for a while. on 1/15/19 i went to see my ENT doctor as the pain and stuffy nose was still bad. this doctor gave me a shot of Kenalog 40. i got home and read that taking steroids a lot can cause adrenal gland supression. would i be at risk of this? i dont plan on getting any other steroid shots however these 2 were about 2 weeks apart. im really scared ill have problems when i could have just lived with sinus pain ugh. what should i do if i am at risk?

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  • Posted

    Dimitri, there are steroids and there are steroids.

    You have been on cortisol (a natural anti-inflamatory steroid) since before you were born because it is produced constantly by your adrenals. There are many other examples.

    Like all internet memes, this one has a grain of truth but it as grown like japanese knotweed.

    IF you take a lot of hydrocortisone (synthetic cortisol) for a while then your your natural pituitary/adrenal system will get "lazy" (NOT damaged). So if you were to stop taking the tablets suddenly, there would be gap before the natural system kicked back in again and you could end up in A&E/ER with an "adrenal crisis". This is all well known to your medics. So IF you were on this drug treatment, they would gradually lower your dose after the treatment completed, just to phase back in the natural system. But your description doesn't suggest any such thing so you can relax.

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