Clinical Corner
Steroids, increased blood sugar, and diabetes: What you need to know
Published: Jul. 16, 2025
8 min read
The content in this article should not be taken as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider regarding your individual health needs.
If your doctor prescribes steroids for you, you might think of headline-grabbing scandals involving athletes abusing anabolic steroids to gain an unfair competitive advantage. These kinds of steroids, which include testosterone and androgen, promote muscle growth and enhance physical performance and should not be abused.
But every day, doctors safely prescribe catabolic steroids, also known as glucocorticoids or simply “steroids,” for many reasons, like reducing inflammation, suppressing the immune system, inhibiting malignant or cancerous growths, or mimicking natural hormones for a variety of illnesses and conditions. Steroids can be used to treat severe allergies; skin conditions and irritations; asthma and COPD; arthritis and joint pain; chronic conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease or lupus; or adrenal diseases, such as Addison’s Disease.
These kinds of steroids can be administered by an injection into muscle or joints, inhaled orally or via intranasal spray, swallowed in liquid or pill form, or applied topically with a cream or ointment, or via drops into the eye or ear. Common steroids include prednisone, dexamethasone, hydrocortisone, betamethasone and prednisolone. If the steroid’s suffix is “lone” or “sone,” you’ll know it’s a corticosteroid.
Steroids are nothing to be alarmed about. The body naturally makes an array of steroid hormones, such as cortisol, produced in the adrenal glands located above the kidneys. If you take prescribed steroids according to your doctor’s directions, they can be beneficial.
However, steroids can have side effects—and if you live with diabetes, they might make it hard to manage. These side effects include1:
- Increased blood sugar (hyperglycemia)
- Poor wound healing
- Appetite change
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Gastrointestinal upset
- Blood pressure increases
- Mood changes
Can steroids raise blood sugar levels?
Whether or not you have diabetes, steroids raise glucose levels by increasing insulin resistance2. That means the insulin your body produces—and/or
insulin you inject—may not be as effective because steroids can decrease insulin effectiveness.
The degree of steroid impact on blood sugar will vary person to person and depends upon whether the steroid is long-acting or short-acting, dosage amount, duration of treatment, and how the steroid is administered. For example, a steroid eye drop might have very little impact compared to a steroid given intravenously, which could cause a rapid glucose spike, or an
oral steroid which might have an impact over a few hours.
If you have diabetes and require steroids for another condition, keeping your blood sugar levels in range may require a more heightened awareness of your levels. That begins with good communication with your care team and asking questions to advocate for your health:
- Is there an alternative to a steroid you could prescribe?
- How big an impact will this steroid have on my glucose?
- Will this steroid change my diabetes treatment plan and, if so, how?
- How long does this steroid take to start working? (Onset of action.)
- How long does this steroid last in my body? (Duration of action.)
- How long will this steroid affect my blood sugar?
- What adverse effects should I monitor for?
- While taking this steroid, are there any OTC or prescription medications I should avoid using?
Critically, if you visit an urgent care practice or a doctor who is unfamiliar with your medical history, let them know you have diabetes and how you manage it so they can consider your specific needs and treat you more effectively. And once you begin a steroid treatment, let your care team know if you experience any troubling side effects.
If you have diabetes, a steroid treatment might require you to make insulin dosage adjustments under medical supervision, be more cognizant of your hydration and food choices, and/or increase your physical activity to stay on top of insulin resistance.3
The Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) System allows you to track your glucose levels in real time every day, so you can stay on top of your diabetes management. And if you are prescribed and take steroids, Dexcom G7 can also help you monitor the new or unexpected glucose changes that might come from those medicines.
- Tracking hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia: Steroids can cause spikes in glucose levels (hyperglycemia), while hypoglycemia occurs when glucose levels are too low. Dexcom G7 can alert you to highs and lows in real time, so you can make appropriate adjustments in your diabetes management and spend more time in range. Dexcom G7 also allows you to customize alerts so you won’t be caught by surprise if steroids begin to impact your glucose.
- Share your levels: Dexcom G7 comes with a Dexcom Follow app† that allows you to share your glucose data with friends and family so they can help you track highs and lows. If you are put on a steroid regimen, you can let your followers know. They can help monitor for changes to glucose levels and patterns and support you through this.
- Delay 1st Alert: Dexcom G7 has an optional Delay 1st Alert you can manually turn on as a customization to avoid alert fatigue. You could set that alert to 180 but delay it until you stay at that level for a set amount of time, such as 30 minutes, one hour or two hours. Steroids will impact your glucose, but your alerts should serve your unique needs.
- Trend data: Dexcom Clarity‡ allows you to store and review your data in easy-to-read graphs, so you and your care team can monitor long-term trends, statistics, and daily data. You can also add notes, such as when you began taking steroids, so you can see the immediate and long-term impact. Dexcom G7 also offers a “medication logging” feature,§ where you can add the name of the medicine, such as prednisone, to the notes section. Using this feature can help inform you and your care team about the steroid’s effect, so you can make changes during treatment, or for future treatments based on the effects of that particular steroid.
Get started on Dexcom G7
If you are living with diabetes and not using CGM, talk to your doctor about Dexcom G7. We can help you get started with a free benefits check. Click the button below to send us some basic information.
*Compatible smart devices sold separately: dexcom.com/compatibility.
† Separate Dexcom Follow app and internet connection required.‡An internet connection is required to send data to Dexcom Clarity.§ available in G7 App only
1 Buchman AL. Side effects of corticosteroid therapy. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2001 Oct;33(4):289-94. 2 Tamez-Pérez HE, et al. Steroid hyperglycemia: Prevalence, early detection and therapeutic recommendations: A narrative review. World J Diabetes. 2015 Jul 25;6(8):1073-81. 3 American Diabetes Association. Standards of Care in Diabetes—2025. Diabetes Care. 2025;48(Supplement 1):S1-S352.
BRIEF SAFETY STATEMENT: Failure to use the Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring System and its components according to the instructions for use provided with your device and available at https://www.dexcom.com/safety-information and to properly consider all indications, contraindications, warnings, precautions, and cautions in those instructions for use may result in you missing a severe hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) or hyperglycemia (high blood glucose) occurrence and/or making a treatment decision that may result in injury. If your glucose alerts and readings from the Dexcom CGM do not match symptoms, use a blood glucose meter to make diabetes treatment decisions. Seek medical advice and attention when appropriate, including for any medical emergency.
Dexcom, Dexcom Clarity, Dexcom Follow, Dexcom One, Dexcom Share, and any related logos and design marks are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Dexcom, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.