Steroids and Immune System Response

So confusing.
Do steroids (pred and dex) turn on/increase or turn off/decrease your immune system ?

I thought that it reduced one's immune system. Yet when I took Dex I suddenly seemed to be allergic to many/all foods.

Steroids do suppress the immune system and usually help allergic reactions.

What sort of food reactions did you have?

Thanks for the confirmation.

Note, previous to the Dex pulse only dust would make me sneeze. And that is it. Now that Dex has worn off, it's back to normal - just dust again.

Reactions? When I drank cows milk as soon as I set the glass down on the first sip, I sneezed. After that happened twice in a row I stopped drinking milk.
Later I noticed my eyes would water or my nose would run when I ate almonds or cashews. Then I noticed my eyes would water or nose would run as soon as I started a meal- didn't seem to make any difference what I was eating. Chicken, ham, vegetables, eggs, didn't matter.

It's like anything that stimulated my stomach created an allergic reaction. Crazy...

Allergic reaction or an intolerance?
Whatever it was it didn't sound like fun.

Food intolerance? Not familiar with that, had to look it up. As I understand those reactions occur after eating.

There must be another, different allergic pathway from the stomach that isn't affected by cortisol / corticosteroids.

I have had a similar problem for years. No matter what I eat, I get stuffy immediately. I'm so used to it that I don't even think about it any more. I told a doctor once and he looked at me like I was crazy. Never brought that up again.

Now that you mention it, I just remembered. My mother has always complained about having a runny nose whenever she eats too.

An intolerance can show up in different ways in different people. An intolerance to citrus was determined in someone I know when citrus was taken from diet - if cooked it isn't a bother. Another intolerance to vanilla was determined when anything with vanilla was removed from the person's diet. I was told by my allergist it is rare to have an allergy to more than 1 food.

I was tested years ago and was allergic to quite a few foods. That was in my teens. It seems to be a lot worse now.

Sandi, would you say that steroids minimize your allergic reactions, or ?