Thedrugs taken before blood tests do have an effect on the labs for both florinef and cortisol.  It takes only half and hour to an hour for them to be absorbed fully--so as you can imagine because they are that much higher than normal childs levels anyway at that point this is relected in the labs done shortly after or over half an hour after anyway that is for sure.  With florinef the point would be to see if the dose is covering your child for 24 hour period.  So you need to check the labs just before the next dose and 24 hours from the last one to see if the dose did the trick.  Same with cortisone dose.  So when you give the drug before the labs--you muss up the results on that score.

I could not comment on your childs levels because I prefer to do the tests before medication is taken and the posts you may have been reading are possibly from studies that recommend much higher ranges.  They cannot make reference ranges for a child who has just taken the drug because each child metabolises the stuff diffferently so what may look ok for some may not be for others.  that is why it is much better to go by the reference ranges 500-1000 ng/dl and do the labs before the bloods in the morning.  You may have some difficulty finding a lab open at 6am in the morning though when it is your child dose time.

Regards

Anne-Marie