Steroids before surgery?

I just had oral surgery to remove all my wisdom teeth and right before I was given my "sleepy meds" the nurse told me she was giving me something that would make me itch. I wanted to know what it was and she told me it was a steroid. What does the steroid do? Why would they have given this to me?

Where I work, as a general rule anesthesia and surgeons really don't like people to be on steroids before surgery, unless of course they are long time steroid users.

Actually, I just had surgery (18 days post-op ACL I can not wait to go back to work!) and was on some steriods for a rash and was told to completely stop them several days before due to them slowing healing.

Hope that helped answered your question

I had my wisdom teeth removed and a SARPE (surgically assisted rapid palate expansion - think surgical Le Fort) last dec. They usually give a dose of decadron (steroid) to help in the reduction of swelling and I only received the one dose immediately prior to OR. We have also used it post-op for people who stay over noc for extra observation when they have had mandible ORIF's, full mouth extractions, orbital wall fx etc and have large amts of swelling but they usually only get 2-3 doses even then. Keeping the swelling down also helps keep the overall pain level down too.