Tuberculosis Options

[*My Cinderella.*]

I just found out I have it. (or at risk for it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

They gave me a ppd shot and supposively I'm positive.

[Jackaroe]

Yeah. There's tons of antibiotics for TB. And even if you test positive for the test that they administer (is it called a Hine test? Whatever. It's something like that... where they inject a needle in your forearm and yeah, like that...) it doesn't mean that you have TB DISEASE. TB INFECTION is when you have the bacteria in your body, but you aren't showing any symptoms and you are not contagious. Your body is able to keep the bacteria at bay.

It usually takes years for TB to take into effect, but it all depends on how healthy you are. If you're pretty healthy, you might not show symptoms for TB disease in over 7 years. But if not, you may come down with it fast.

And the coughing up blood thing comes from pulmonary arteries in the lungs. If you have pulmonary TB (which is the most common kind. Let's hope you don't have TB of the spine or lymph nodes), then your lungs basically get destroyed.

So, hopefully you don't TB Disease. Most likely, you only have TB infection, which is easily treatable. I know when I got that test done, I was slightly positive, but that's only because I had the BCG shot when I was born.