Ever had a positive TB test?

[phall0106]

Please note, I am under the care of a physician and plan to seek medical attention as recommended by my physician.

This week, I went for a physical to begin my new job position. Part of that was a TB skin test. You know, that little needle under the skin with the little bump? Well, I'm off today to get mine read and it looks like a tiny little reddish bruise, about the size of a pencil eraser, which is exactly like a photo I Googled for a positive TB skin test.

I'm freaking out, absolutely FREAKING OUT, because the Newbaby is here, and the thought that I could have something which could possibly infect him is killing me. Aside from the fact that I have absolutely no clue when I could have been exposed to TB. I don't do anything, other than breathe, which is high risk. No foreign travels, no IV drug use, no hanging out at nursing homes or hospitals, no malnutrition, no smoking or alcohol abuse--nothing. Further Googling indicates that since I have no symptoms of TB, it may be latent TB, which means I'm not infectious...but still... I go this evening to have my skin test read, so I have all day to mull this over in my mind and feel like the worst person in the world at possiblity having exposed my 4 month old grandson to TB...

Anyone else ever had a positive TB test? Had the chest x-ray? Went through treatment?

[don't ask]

When I was psych nursing we had a TB ward. To nurse on the ward you had to have a positive Mantoux test...the little skin prick had to produce a reaction, indicating that you had acquired immunity to TB or you had to have a BCG. I had several before I was allowed to work on the ward.

Anyhow the story then was that you wanted to get a positive test result. It meant you had already been exposed and were immune. Unless of course you were some recent immigrant from a third world country.

[don't ask]

Oh I should have added, most of the staff tested positive first time and had no need for BCGs.

Tons of people have been exposed without ever getting ill but without testing you don't know it.

You are fine.

[threemae]

IANAD, but I can pretty emphatically say that the first thing you should do is not freak out.

First off, telling positive from negative PPD's is somewhat more difficult than one might imagine. If you're at the early side of the 48-72 hour window there can still be redness and irritation from the injection without a raised bump that isn't a positive.

Even if you do have a positive PPD, it may or may not mean that you've ever been exposed to tuberculosis. Suffice to say, there are reasons for false positives.

After that, even if you really have been exposed to TB, the important thing is that you aren't showing symptoms right now, and a chest x-ray will help you objectively say that you aren't experiencing active TB.

Following that, you're fortunate to live in a developed nation with a relatively good medical infrastructure. Although TB is very rare here, the MDR and XDR TB strains you hear about on the news and probably come across through Google are exceedingly rare. It's almost certain that your doctor will be able to provide you with drugs to effectively treat your TB both for your own health and the health of others around you.

Again, don't freak out.

If your PPD comes back positive, the people that placed it will be able to guide you to the next steps. You won't be out there alone with just the SDMB and Google to consult. The chance of you dying Edgar Allan Poe style of the consumption is effectively nil.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

[Illuminatiprimus]

Yes, I've tested positive when I was about 12. My step mother contracted TB (probably when she visited Kenya when she was younger) and developed full blown TB that required medication and isolation. Everyone who had had contact with her had to be tested and mine came back positive, and the xrays confirmed that I had experienced TB but had fought it off.

So, chances are you actually have had TB at some point in the past but never realised. As Don't Ask said, it happens to a lot of people.

[Cub Mistress]

When you run you finger lightly over the area, is the area hardened and raised? Bruising or redness alone do not make the test positive.

http://www.medicinenet.com/tuberculo...test/page2.htm Here is some information from emedicine.

On preview, pretty much what Threemae said. Don't panic.

[Kalhoun]

You can contract TB just by being in close quarters with infected people. A crowded bus ride every day with an infected person can do it. My understanding is that treatment is much better today and not the long dragged out quarantine situation of yesteryear.

My ex's father had it. He lived in a TB sanitarium for something like 11-12 years. I'm pretty sure we've made great strides and this should not be something to fear today. Here's an interesting site: http://www.aidsetc.org/aidsetc?page=cm-523_tb

[phall0106]

Originally Posted by Cub Mistress

When you run you finger lightly over the area, is the area hardened and raised? Bruising or redness alone do not make the test positive.

http://www.medicinenet.com/tuberculo...test/page2.htm Here is some information from emedicine.

On preview, pretty much what Threemae said. Don't panic.

It's hardened and raised. it feels like a callous.

I'm not freaked out so much at the thought of treatment for me, but the fact that all my holding, kissing and cuddling with Newbaby the past two weeks could have negative health effects for him.

[notthatagain]

After spending a season as a night monitor in an emergency shelter for homeless folks, I decided a TB test would be prudent, what with me having smoked heavily for 35 years and all.

The most common comment from people I mentioned it to was: "Why?", as if I had done something incredibly stupid!

The test site swelling measured 7mm diameter the day of the reading, indicative of TB. I was sent for a chest x-ray, (I utilized the Health Dept. so I wouldn't have to pay for anything) and I was diagnosed with LATENT TB.

In order to please the Health Department (and receive my letter of "successful treatment") I had to take isoniazid once a day for nine months. The antibiotic was significant enough to warrant a liver panel prior to, and 30 days into taking the drug. No drinking either - not a concern to me, but a HUGE deterrent to homeless folks that rely on alcohol for comfort or alcoholism.

If required to have a TB test for employment or other purposes, I must have a chest x-ray since I will always test positive for the Mantoux PPD.

It makes for a moment of amusement watching the expressions when you tell folks "I have Tuberculosis".

Don't panic, take the meds you're directed to take and learn all you can. There's plenty of info on the web.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

My aunt and grandma have both had positive TB tests. They were both told that it's not uncommon for the skin prick tests to produce positive results from people who grew up in rural communities and drank unpasteurized milk. My aunt and most of my grandma's family were small-time farmers who grew up in a little village. In the 1930s, when my aunt was growing up 40% of cows were infected with M. bovis. They practically had milk straight from the cow when they were growing up. My dad ws born after they'd moved to a larger city and never drank unpasteurized milk and has never tested positive for TB.

As far as I know, neither my aunt nor grandma had ever been ill with TB, they just had the anti-bodies from having been exposed to bovine TB. Although, if I recall correctly, my aunt's x-rays showed some mild scarring which suggests she may have had some TB at some point in her life, but clearly it wasn't severe because no one remembers her being sick as a child.

And none of her children have ever been sick or tested positive for TB.

I wouldn't freak out just yet.

[Ferret Herder]

I personally know two health care workers, with direct patient contact (one pediatric nurse, one tech), who show positive Mantoux TB tests and thus need yearly chest x-rays instead of the yearly Mantoux to show that they do not have the disease. Neither of them ever had TB that they knew of, but were probably exposed enough that their immune systems reacted to it and fought the disease off, and now continue to react to testing.

I "react" enough to the Mantoux to have my first (pre-employment) test be misinterpreted as positive by one of the nurses. The nurse who was called in to re-evaluate it stated it wasn't actually positive. Our pre-employment testing called for two Mantoux tests, a week apart I think, and my second wasn't interpreted as positive either. Now on my yearly tests I will sometimes have the spot continue to look red and somewhat raised for a long time afterwards, but it goes away - I think the longest time anything was visible was a month or longer. Other times it disappears pretty quickly. (So my body's quirky, what else is new?)

You will probably need to have a chest x-ray. You might not even have latent TB or anything wrong at all. It's highly possible that you were just exposed enough to get your immune system all worked up over it. Please don't get yourself all worried over something like this.

[Nava]

Having a bump is NOT enough to make it a positive. The bump has to be a certain size. In the descriptions of protocols currently in use in the Spanish medical system, the size that's considered a positive depends on the patient's general health: someone with general good health needs a bigger bump than someone HIV+ who in turn needs a bigger bump than someone who's already had HIV+-linked illnesses. In those same protocols and due to the ridiculous amount of positives in the Spanish population, a positive is always followed by an X-ray; if the X-ray comes out clean you're fine.

The test does NOT indicate that you have TB. It indicates that your body recognizes a substance produced by the TB bacterium; that is understood to indicate that your body has been in contact with the bug and knows how to fight it. If your white cells have been succesful, you won't have TB. If your white cells haven't been succesful, you will have TB.

There was a case last year, where two kids (cousins, immigrants from an Eastern European country reputed for its bad healthcare) in a Spanish school, in a region where public healthcare is managed at the regional level, came down with TB. The whole school (about 400 people including students, teachers and support personnel) got tested for TB, but also, since there are protocols to run general health checks in schools every four-five years and that school was due the following year, they moved them up and gave everybody the X-rays, vision checks, hearing checks etc which are part of the general health check. The way the person from the healthcare department explained it, they were running the TB test first because that's what WHO protocol says you have to do, but they weren't planning on starting treatment on anybody until the X-rays came through. They did ask people to avoid any travel while testing was under way, including to nearby villages, visits to the family and so forth.

I've had the tuberculin test done three times, tested positive twice, lungs are just fine.

[puddleglum]

I had the test and came back as having been exposed to TB. I had a chest X-ray and that came back negative. I took an antibiotic once a day for six months. The doctor told me after that I never have to worry about TB again.
It was no big deal. As I understand it TB is only a danger if you a person who won't take the full course of the antibiotic which causes the TB to come back and this time be resistant to that antibiotic.

[notthatagain]

[quote=Way Too Happy;The test site swelling measured 7mm diameter the day of the reading...[/QUOTE]

Oops! Make that 17mm diameter.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

Oopsie, I just noted a litte error in my above post:

In he 1930s, 40% of cows in the UK were infected with M. bovis.

I don't know about the U.S.

[Troy McClure SF]

Chill, yo.

Lots and lots and lots of people have positive TB tests. If doesn't necessarily mean (and in fact, very rarely does mean) you have anything to worry about. About 25% to 30% of employees here have +PPD history... nothing to worry about until they start coughing.

(I'm not licensed for jack shit, but I work in Employee Health of a hospital, which includes TB tests and symptom questionnaires for employees.)

[lavenderviolet]

Tuberculosis is a sneaky disease in that it can lie dormant in the body for many years - being held in check by the immune system so you don't actually have symptoms, but waiting for its chance to come to life if you become weak or immunocompromised.
If it turns out you do have TB, it's better to find out that you have it now when you're asymptomatic, so you can get treated while you're still strong and healthy, than to only find out when TB comes on in full force while you're in a sickly or weakened state.
The treatments we have nowadays are vastly more effective than they were during the sanitarium days of old (at least for now, until antibiotic resistant strains become more widespread thanks to the inevitability of some people with the disease acting like boneheads). If it does turn out that you do have TB, just make sure you're compliant with the treatments.

[Freudian Slit]

I did, but it was because I'd been vaccinated years ago as a child.

[Oy!]

I tested positive in the first grade. They never did figure out why. The only result was that I had to be retested every year. One other kid also had to be tested every year, because she had spent her early years drinking unpasteurized milk.

Relax. Neither you nor your baby are going to die like Mimi in La Boheme.

[tetranz]

It's something that your doctor needs to look at but, as others have said, it's not something to freak out about.

I had a 12 mm positive TB result this year as part of tests for immigration.

It's a legally notifiable disease so the testing doctor had to inform the state health department. They told me to see my GP which I did and he sent me to a pulmonary specialist who decided that there was nothing to worry about since my chest x-ray was clean and I don't have any symptoms. He also wasn't concerned that I volunteer in a nursing home for an hour a week (helping the residents play bowling ).

I did some reading at the time and it may have been the result of the TB vaccination (BCG ?) we all got as kids in New Zealand. The doctors said maybe but it's not certain enough to draw that conclusion. I also have vague memories of a former girlfriend telling me about a family member with TB so ... who knows.

[even sven]

Another call for "don't worry about it." I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, and the Peace Corps doctors are VERY strict about things. Every year a few volunteers would end up with positive TB skin tests and it was never a big deal. Even the people who did need to take the nine months of drugs were allowed to postpone that until after their service was complete, since "during your Peace Corps service" is a pretty difficult time to give up drinking.

[Oy!]

I think the summary here is: it's probably not TB, and even if it is, it's a pretty slow moving disease and extremely treatable here in the US at this time. My thyroid is dead; I'll have to take medicine the rest of my life. It sounds like TB would only need 9 months or so. If you're concerned about the baby, have him/her tested too.

[phall0106]

Went in for the results to be read this morning and the nurse said it was negative. She said the coloring (simliar to a bruise) was probably just that--a bruise from the injection. When I asked about it, she said that she was looking for a raised reaction like an obvious lump in or under the skin (which isn't present with my reaction).

Stupid bruise.

[Oy!]

Good, phall. Next time, don't borrow trouble quite so fast. Babies are pretty tough, and modern medicine is pretty good. Ask yourself when the last time you heard of someone dying of thus and so in the U.S. (with decent treatment) was.

[threemae]

Originally Posted by phall0106

Stupid bruise.

Good to hear. So you didn't even make it to the second line of the flow chart.

[phall0106]

Originally Posted by Oy!

Good, phall. Next time, don't borrow trouble quite so fast. Babies are pretty tough, and modern medicine is pretty good. Ask yourself when the last time you heard of someone dying of thus and so in the U.S. (with decent treatment) was.

You know the old saying, "When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras"? Well, I not only don't think horses, or even zebras, I automatically jump to unicorns. One of the drawbacks to a very creative imagination. Does the worst case scenario happen? Not usually, but I can invision it in vivid detail...

[Oy!]

Originally Posted by phall0106

You know the old saying, "When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras"? Well, I not only don't think horses, or even zebras, I automatically jump to unicorns. One of the drawbacks to a very creative imagination. Does the worst case scenario happen? Not usually, but I can invision it in vivid detail...

I guess I shouldn't talk. I only recently found out that not everyone starts planning for the possible death of the person who's not where they expect him/her to be, which I've been doing for about forty years now.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally Posted by phall0106

Went in for the results to be read this morning and the nurse said it was negative. She said the coloring (simliar to a bruise) was probably just that--a bruise from the injection. When I asked about it, she said that she was looking for a raised reaction like an obvious lump in or under the skin (which isn't present with my reaction).

Stupid bruise.

*points to her post up thread, detailing much the same problem*

See? SEE?! Told ya.

Glad to hear all is well.

[The Mermaid]

There is also the probability that you are reacting to the preservative that the drug is in. I'm an RN and I have to be tested every year. My test always looks a mess at first but by the end of 72 hours, there is never an enduration (hard raised bump).