Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
Tallulah, I know for certain with you, and Nailhead, I strongly suspect with you, too, that you were likely put on cortico-steroids, not on anabolic steroids. Cortico-steroids like prednisone or a Medrol dose pack (ever-dwindling doses) or dexamethasone are used medically a lot as anti-inflammatories or immuno-suppressants. I took those, too, after my spinal surgery to reduce neurological inflammation. They are commonly prescribed and have plenty of justified uses, like allergic reactions or immuno-suppression or various others. While they do have some nasty side-effects, they're not anything like anabolic steroids, which are synthetic androgens (fake male hormones). The corticosteroid I took after my spinal surgery made me irritable and hungry and very depressed, but those symptoms fortunately went away as soon as I stopped them.

Anabolic steroids have far fewer legitimate medical applications than cortico-steroids. Occasionally anabolics will be used for a brief time under close supervision to boost stunted growth or stop wasting diseases such as HIV or cancer, but they're far more frequently used illegally and improperly.
Yes, you are right. Thank you for clarifying that! My mom is on Prednisone like the rest of her life.
...and yes Prednisone was in fact what I was put on. They started me at 50mg and I was on them for 2 weeks because I had to be weened off of them. Awful things I tell you!