For Crohn's?
"In general, I try to minimize (or avoid altogether) the use of systemic steroids (i.e. prednisone) in Crohn’s patients if at all possible. This is based on current guidelines, clinical observations and teaching I received during my inflammatory bowel training at Mount Sinai. There are many reasons for this approach. The first is that,
while steroids can lead to short-term disease improvement, they do not appear to be able to fully heal intestinal tissue over time (also known as mucosal healing). The ability of a Crohn’s medication to achieve mucosal healing is being increasingly recognized as an important treatment goal.
In contrast,
other therapies such as azathioprine, mercaptopurine and biologics have been shown to accomplish this objective..."
http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=50497
Complete miss of the point I was talking about. More "apt" meant to treat someone who has an infection with antibiotics- meaning high dose steroids (and even lower dose) are much more likely to immunue suppressed acutely than someone on a small stable dose of 6mp for many years. Their system adapts over time, and though true, may not have the same immunity as a completely healthy person, is really not all that severely immune suppressed- especially compared to someone on steroids.
Steroids, though of course necessary at times, have one of the most horrible short (immune supression, insomnia, anxiety) and long (osteoporosis, diabetes, cataracts) side effect profiles of any medication on earth. Avoid them as much as possible. Sorry if the above statement was not clear, but we were talking about appropriateness of treating infections with antibiotics, NOT treatment of crohns.
Like the majority of this forum. This forum is full of members who are immune compromised. Yes antibiotics are overused for the general public but we're not the general public.