Tuberculosis Treatment: The Road to Recovery
Editor's Note: WebMD Staffer Leona Perry has been taking the story of tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker a little more personally than the rest of us here at WebMD. Her sister Renee was diagnosed with tuberculosis in late 2004 and it put their family into a difficult medical situation. Leona told her story; now it's Renee's turn.I felt run down all the time, and like I said before, my cough was really bad at night, so I wasn't sleeping very well. Brad had given up sleeping with me because he couldn't get any sleep either. I lost a lot of weight, too. I went from 125 lbs down to around 115. That part I really didn't mind too much.
The nurses at the Health Dept were great and made it as pleasant an experience as they could. Mary, my main nurse, answered every question we had.
Brad took me out to the park on the weekends to walk around, since I couldn't go shopping. I could tell that my lungs were being affected because I couldn't walk a half mile before I was completely out of breath and panting.
After 3 weeks of treatment I was declared to be safe in society again and was able to go back to work. I was very lucky that the company I work for had a sick day policy of 30 days at that time, or I would have had to go on short-term disability.
I then had to go back twice a week to give samples, and I was also taking several types of antibiotics that I was only allowed to take with the nurses at the Health Dept watching me. They evidently have a lot of people who actually refuse to take the medicine, so it is not a take-home option.
When I asked how I could have gotten the disease, I was told that the foreigners coming into our country are bringing this disease in from the Third World countries. Many of them are not getting treatment, so it's becoming more prevalent again.
I finally finished all of my medication at the end of August 2005, and then I was sent for another set of x-rays to make sure the disease was no longer in my lungs.
The sad part is that I did actually infect one of my friends/coworkers, Kenny. He did not have the active type so he was put on the preventative medication for nine months. This is an elective medication, but if you don't take it, the disease could become active.
FYI...if you see someone walking through the mall with a mask on, leave immediately. They could be one of those people who is supposed to be quarantined at home and thinks as long as they have their mask on they are not harming anyone else.
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1 Comments:
The allegation on foreigners bringing the disease is NOT RIGHT. The health professional who dealt with you did not make you appreciate the unique features of the disease.
If we take a global scenario, 70% individuals exposed to the infected aerosol don't even get the infection (we still don't no why this is so and what are the mechanisms). Only 30% gets infected - that means the bacteria are able to lodge themselves inside the human subject - not necessarily causing disease. Only 40% of these infected (so about 10% of initially exposed individuals) only develop primary disease. Rest 20% of the initially exposed are able to control the infection, but not able to eliminate the bacteria from the body - this is called LATENT TB or Non-Replicating Persistent Tuberculosis. These are people who are at risk of developing disease in case of any immune suppression.
One-third of the population have latent TB, but if you go to high-endemic countries, these numbers can be as high as 70%.
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