Dexamethasone is a very potent anti-inflammatory hormone.
From him in the blood, the level of leukocytes sharply jumps. In just a few hours. This is immediately noticeable. Somewhere by 4 to ten to the ninth degree in a liter jumps. And sometimes leukocytes generally scale.
The point is this. A lot of leukocytes in our blood do not float, but sit, attached to the wall of blood vessels.
If something bad happens in the organs and tissues, something falls apart there, or someone has penetrated there from the street, the leukocytes receive a signal and begin to seep through the vessel wall into the surrounding tissue. Well, if no one beeps, then the leukocytes sit quietly.
Dexamethasone hits the sitting leukocytes so that they fall off the vessel wall like ripe apples. It turns out that the number of leukocytes floating freely in the blood increases.
And dexamethasone also prolongs the life of leukocytes.
The cells in our body have a shelf life after which they must die. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death.
So, dexamethasone interferes with this process, and leukocytes, instead of dying, continue to float in the blood and accumulate there.
Dexamethasone also causes the bone marrow to secrete more young white blood cells.
That is, normally, during a severe infection, young leukocytes are released from the bone marrow into the blood to help adults. Roughly like the boys from the tale of the Military Secret.
Under normal conditions, leukocyte boys themselves rush into battle. But dexamethasone simply pushes them out of the bone marrow in the back. The boys do not know what to do next, and therefore they hang around aimlessly in blood for a long time.
All of these factors increase the total white blood cell count, which can be confusing for the doctor. Hence the conclusion: do not forget to tell your doctor about all the medicines that you indulged in at home. Otherwise, the hospital may turn you inside out in search of a source of white blood cells.
