"Rebound effect" from steroids?

[eljomom]

After hearing SO MANY people post that their child did wonderfully with steroid burst or taper, then shortly thereafter relapsed, and often with WORSE symptoms than at start point, I wonder if maybe there is a "rebound effect" taking place? Inflammation is temporarily forced with steroids, then when they are stopped, the body works hard again, causing inflammation to return, even worse? Anyone ever thought of this or asked a doctor?

[eljomom]

Hmmm....just googled and immediately got many hits:

 

"Another possible complication to coming off steroids is steroid withdrawal syndrome, or rebound effect, which is the body's exaggerated response to removal of the drug."

[P_Mom]

Never happened here. My son never had a 'rebound effect'......only improvement. And he never got worse after steroids...nor have his symptoms ever returned to the degree they were before the burst.

[Kayanne]

Never happened here. My son never had a 'rebound effect'......only improvement. And he never got worse after steroids...nor have his symptoms ever returned to the degree they were before the burst.

The same for my daughter. She needed the second burst because of strep exposure. Again, we had long-term results.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Kayanne

[dcmom]

We have never had a rebound effect, but, while we usually have seen great improvement with oral steroids, I would say it has been long term about 50% of the time, the other 50% we had to go further.....

 

Steroids have been a lifesaver- AND, I do wean them off of steroids with advil, to avoid any possible "rebound". (I had read about doing this on an MS site- not sure if it has been needed, though.)

[peglem]

Tapering off steroids (with the courses longer than 5 days) is supposed to prevent rebound because it gradually allows the body to resume its own production of steroids.

 

We've only ever done the 5 day bursts, 4 of them. 3 of those gave us moderate improvements, especially in the weeks following. The first may have given us some improvement...we were doing a lot of new things at the time and she was REALLY in a bad way. It at least didn't make things worse.

 

For us, its a tool. If we see some improvement it confirms that the current problem is probably immune/autoimmune related. I think even we can learn from the effects of medication- what works and what doesn't. It gives us clues as to what is going on as much as a lab test.

[T_Mom]

With one Pitand d -- 2 steroid bursts (3 weeks long each) and each time VERY good results.

 

The first time she was 110% and "recovered" for about a year before a flair of OCD (with strep exposure.)

 

The second time she got much better, but not 100% -- maybe 75% and holding.

 

For us, the first time (or two) of using a steroid burst had really good effects, but seem to have lessened each time.

[dut]

Hi - we have used steroids bursts for 5 days (60mg per day) for our dd8 twice. Both times gave great results. Ist time it knocked OCD on the head in 12 hours of the 1st dose and remaining symptoms (tics/behavioural/anxiety/sleep etc) by day 3. The second burst got rid of all the OCD again within 12 hours and very much lessened all other symptoms but not to the extent of the 1st time. Both bursts had lasting effect until the next trigger. No rebound.

 

We have used the same 5 day burst (30mg per day) on ds then 3. We saw only minimal improvement in behaviour but massive improvement in sleep. This only lasted for the length of the burst plus a few days for him but was as much diagnostic as treatment for him. Again, no rebound noticeable.

 

I absolutely would use them again if we tanked badly but wouldn't for lesser flares as dd put a lot of weight on and kept doing so well after the bursts. She just got massively hungry and kept eating.

 

Good luck...