Effect of Steroids on WBC

[Bowie1957]

I have been on Imbruvica for two years and two months. I have been responding very well to treatment with my numbers going down to the normal range. Over two month ago I was prescribed some steroids to help with severe lower back pain. I have taken 20 pills, 5 mg each for a total of 100 mg. Yesterday, Had a visit with my hematologist for my regular check up and had a CBC done. I was surprised to see my WBC go up a bit as a result of elevated Neutrophils, by about 2500/mm cubed and Elevated Lymphocytes by about 700/mm cubed.

Question: does the effect of steroids linger in the blood for more than two months? Please let me know. Thx

[cajunjeff]

Bowie, to my understanding the half life of steroids is 1 to 3 days. It takes about 5 half life’s to fully eliminate some drugs.

So my amateur guess would be it will take 5 to 15 days for steroids to clear your system. The impact of drugs beyond a couple half life’s would not be that much. I would think if it is steroids that caused your wbc to jump, which is certainly possible, that your wbc would normalize if a couple weeks after your last steroid dose.

This is all just a pure amateur guess. I don’t really know. Gardening Girl or Neil would probably have a better idea than me.

My wbc did jump in steroids but I started treatment soon after such that I don’t really know what lingering effect steroids had on my wbc.

In any event, I don’t think a transient change in wbc caused by steroids has any long term implications to our health.

[210savannah]

I also took a steroid regimen for 10 days. My WBC was up to 11,000 from around 6,000 when I had blood work but in 5 weeks when I had it checked again, it was back to the norm for me. So not sure how long it will stay in your system, but steroids DO cause a rise in WBC but the count does return to normal within a short time. Bless you!