Hi I got a posisitve tuberculosis skin test and I'm going to get an x-ray tomorrow, Can this disease kill me? and if it can how long does it take to kill?
Other - Diseases - 3 Answers
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1 :
A person with active TB disease has a large amount of TB bacteria in the body. TB disease can be treated by taking several drugs for 6 to 12 months. It is very important that people who have TB disease finish the medicine, and take the drugs exactly as prescribed. If they stop taking the drugs too soon, they can become sick again; if they do not take the drugs correctly, the germs that are still alive may become resistant to those drugs. TB that is resistant to drugs is harder and more expensive to treat. Overall, take your medicine and you should be fine.
2 :
WOAH slow the horse down!! just because you have a positive test doesn't mean you HAVE TB!!! it merely means that either A) you've been exposed to someone who has TB or B) you just test +. that's why they do the chest x-ray; it will show any evidence of present or past disease. no need to jump the bridge yet!
3 :
To answer your questions 1. TB can kill. But with todays treatments that is unlikely. Furthermore, you may not have active TB. You may have latent TB 2. If you have active TB then you must be treated for 12 months with a minimum of 4 meds. If you have latent then you may be treated for 6-9 months with one medication. Here's some more info: You have a positive TB skin test (PPD). The fact that your doc is sending you to get a chest x-ray means that you are NOT showing symptoms of active TB (low grade fevers, wt loss, cough, cough with blood etc...)...otherwise s/he would have hospitalized you and put you under respiratory isolation. The next question is why did you have a positive PPD? Unfortunately, you haven't given any additional information. Are you immunocompromised or a health-care worker?? One reason why a person may have a positive is because of the bCG vaccine. If you're from another country then you may have had a bCG vaccine (look for that weird mark/scar on your arm which you've had as long as you can remember). It would have been useful to know your age The purpose of the chest xray is to look for active TB. If your chest xray shows signs of active TB then you'll be treated accordingly. If your chest xray is negative then your diagnosis is latent. You should be treated for 6-9 months. But this is a physician preference area meaning that your doc may not treat if s/he has good reason. Finally, whatever the outcome, make sure to save ALL medical records pertaining to TB because you'll always be PPD positive...and you'll have to explain why and what happened. Otherwise you'll have to go through the same thing again
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