Adverse Reaction To Medicine: Steroids That Can Cause Screaming

screaming

You’ve heard of “Roid Rage” right? With all the stories about ball players and steroids there have been numerous accounts of people getting angry/crazy after taking steroids. Well, I’m here to tell you it happens in babies, too.

Just after I published the story on adverse reactions to medicines in babies we found ourselves in the doctors office with a baby struggling to breath and vomiting everywhere. Now, it sounds truly terrible, but to be honest we’ve been here before, so while we were very concerned, we weren’t freaking out…been there, done that and it wasn’t pretty.

The doctor, who we LOVE – he’s the perfect pediatrician…gentle, sweet, calming and funny – took excellent care of all of us, administered a steroid and other medicine to ease the lungs (I’m no doc, so I’ll leave the exact names out of this) and sent us home with an emergency number and a follow up appointment for the next day.

Everything was looking up! Our daughter was breathing properly and was tired as all get out, so we lovingly put her to sleep. 30 minutes later she was up SCREAMING a blood curdling scream that had us jumping to her side. She was inconsolable – which, while not completely abnormal, was certainly not in our baby’s general character.

Then, about 4 hours later, when we were in the deepest of deep sleep, the baby let out another host of screams that could wake the dead. Or, at least the upstairs neighbor. And the one above her! And, again with the screaming at nap time the next day.

Cut to the follow up appointment – the doc comes in, all calm and gentle, checks out Sophie and remarks on how incredibly well she’s doing. No wheezing, no sign of illness…nothing. He asks if we have any questions and I bring up the screaming shrieks that came forth from my child’s tiny body and he, ever so matter-of-factly says that why yes, steroids can and often do make the patient “crazy.” His word. CRAZY.

That’s comforting to know…NOW.

photo credit: bhollar