{"id":1177,"date":"2021-02-26T09:07:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T14:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2021-02-26T09:07:02","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T14:07:02","slug":"is-it-safe-to-have-the-vaccine-while-using-topical-steroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1177","title":{"rendered":"Is it safe to have the vaccine while using topical steroids?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Question:<\/strong>\u00a0Is it safe to have the Covid vaccine while using topical steroids?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I&#8217;m not a medical doctor and this is a question best answered by a medical doctor.\u00a0 Please consult your doctor!\u00a0 With that nudge, I&#8217;ll share what I know based on what I&#8217;ve read.\u00a0 First off, a lot depends on how long you&#8217;ve been taking the corticosteroid and what the dosage is.\u00a0 If it&#8217;s a low\/moderate dose taken for less than 2 weeks, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything to be concerned about.\u00a0 If, however, it&#8217;s a moderate\/high dose* that you&#8217;ve taken for 14 days or more, there are a few concerns:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Corticosteroids have the potential to be immunosuppressive and are presumed to cause some degree of altered immunocompetence.&nbsp; Having a compromised immune system means that the effect of vaccination may not be as robust.&nbsp; In this case, it&#8217;s best to talk with your doctor about whether to continue taking the steroids and have the jab OR discontinue use of the steroid for a bit of time then take the vaccine for improved immune response.&nbsp; There are pros\/cons of each approach.<\/li><li>The second issue concerns safety. For inactivated vaccines there&#8217;s no safety risk associated with taking corticosteroids when vaccinated. However, for live attenuated vaccines (like MMR, Yellow Fever), many clinicians consider relatively high doses* of steroids taken for \u226514 consecutive days to be sufficiently immunosuppressive to warrant&nbsp;concern about the safety of vaccination.&nbsp; For live attenuated vaccine administration, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/hcp\/acip-recs\/general-recs\/downloads\/general-recs.pdf\">recommends<\/a>,&nbsp; &#8220;Vaccination providers should defer live-virus vaccination for at least 1 month after discontinuation of high-dose systemically absorbed corticosteroid therapy administered for \u226514 days.&#8221;&nbsp; Here it&#8217;s important to note that all COVID vaccines currently authorized for use or under consideration (e.g. Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson &amp; Johnson) are inactivated (for a reminder on vaccine types, see&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1051\">Q&amp;A of 1\/21<\/a>).&nbsp; This means that the safety concerns described herein do not currently pertain to COVID vaccinations.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Finally, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/covid-19\/info-by-product\/clinical-considerations.html\">CDC&#8217;s clinical guidance<\/a> for mRNA vaccines against COVID states,&nbsp;&#8220;Immunocompromised individuals can receive COVID-19 vaccination if they have no contraindications to vaccination [e.g. severe allergic reaction]. However, they should be counseled about the unknown vaccine safety profile and effectiveness in immunocompromised populations, and the potential for reduced immune responses&#8230;&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*Per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/hcp\/acip-recs\/general-recs\/downloads\/general-recs.pdf\">ACIP<\/a>&nbsp;and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paho.org\/immunization\/toolkit\/resources\/paho-publication\/job-aids\/vaccine-safety\/vaccination-questions-commonly-asked-by-healthcare-professionals.pdf?ua=1\">PAHO<\/a>,&nbsp;&#8220;many clinicians consider a dose equivalent to either 2 mg\/kg of body weight or a total of 20 mg per day of prednisone for 2 or more weeks as sufficiently immunosuppressive to raise concern about the safety of vaccination with live virus vaccines.&#8221;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0Is it safe to have the Covid vaccine while using topical steroids? Answer:\u00a0I&#8217;m not a medical doctor and this is a question best answered by a medical doctor.\u00a0 Please consult your doctor!\u00a0 With that nudge, I&#8217;ll share what I know based on what I&#8217;ve read.\u00a0 First off, a lot depends on how long you&#8217;ve been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,38,64],"tags":[178],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guidelines","category-immunity","category-vaccines","tag-steroids","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pexels-photo-4021798.jpeg?fit=867%2C1300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}