CORTISONE – INTRODUCTION
Cortisone is a hormone normally produced in the body by the adrenal glands which lie above the kidneys.
It is essential for life and has many functions, one of which is to suppress inflammation.
Inflammation is the normal process where the body defends itself against either injury or infection, but sometimes this inflammation gets out of control, or is provoked in the body by antibodies produced, as it were, by the body developing an allergy to its own tissues.
Cortisone can suppress this inflammation and control, if not cure, the disease.
Cortisone derivatives are widely used as creams and ointments in treating skin diseases.
Most skin diseases provoke inflammation in the skin and cortisone applied topically reduces this and often clears the rash.
Because cortisone can suppress the inflammation needed to control infection it may be used when there is infection on the skin, or for that matter when taken by mouth it may suppress the body’s ability to deal with the infection.
Prolonged local use may damage the skin, leading it to lose its elastic tissue and become thin as in old age and with prominent blood vessels.
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