My son was recently diagonosed with KLS. he started out having a positive test for MONO. I took him to the Er and they started him on a Medrol steroid pack . With in a few hours of giving him his first dose through his IV he was awake for the first time in days. He continued on a decreasing dosage of steroids and was fine. When he finished his steroids he went back to sleeping. Has any one else used steroids ? He went on another decreasing dosage of Medrol Steroids and he came out of it. Each time he came off the steroids he started sleeeping. I took him to an Infectious disease dr. she blamed it on the steroid use. We weaned him off . This is before we learned he had KLS. He has episodes every 6 weeks almost to the day. I can count it on the calender.
Ann

Our son has recently been pulled out of an episode with low dose corticosteroids. He is reducing them and is still awake and doing very well, -better than he has been for years. There are a lot of people on low dose maintenance steroids for various conditions and know that James would consider this to be preferable to spending most of his life asleep. I am amazed that there have been no more replies!

My daughter has always tested negative for mono. It is interesting about the steroids. My daughter just about went nuts though the only time she took something with steroid in it - an asthma medication. Some people react very badly to corticosteroids, but there are different types. Also, the asthma medication had salmeterol in it, too, and her adverse reaction could have been to that.

There are a number of side effects with salmeterol that you should report immediately to your healthcare provider. These include but are not limited to:
  * Worsening breathing problems
  * Irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias)
  * A very fast heart rate (tachycardia)
  * High blood pressure (hypertension)
  * Anxiety
  * High blood sugar
  * Signs of an allergic reaction, including unexplained rash, hives, itching, unexplained swelling, wheezing, or difficulty breathing or swallowing.

-so it could well have been the salmeterol

How quickly did her symptoms come after taking it out of interest?

They built over a period of several days. She was sleeping poorly, became anxious, and became increasingly agitated and paranoid. It looked just like “mental illness.” Fortunately, the GP immediately figured it was the asthma medication, and had her stop, and the symptoms quickly stopped. She did have rapid heart rate which we thought was the anxiety.  The GP said both the salmeterol or the corticosteroids could have caused her symptoms. Wow. Just from an asthma medication.