On 5/28/2010 4:25 PM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In ,
wrote:



Either you are a valid positive, because your system has been exposed to TB
(at
one time you have had the living TB bacteria in your system) or you are a
false
positive (most common cause is have had a BCG inoculation but there are also
some medically significant causes). Best advice is that it should be
explored
by a competent doc.
I am 56 years old, and the false positive has been around since I
took the initial test for school at 5. I was worked up then, again in
college when I was tested again having forgot about the positive, and
again when went nursing school in '82 (see above) and then yearly up to
around the mid-90s or so when OSHA finally got around to figuring out
they were probably causing more cancers than finding real TB cases and
stopped it for healthcare workers. (I only faintly glow at night any
more).

If the false positive reading can be ruled-out
(eliminated
as the reason), consideration should be given to providing you with a limited
course of anti-tuberculosis drugs to minimize the risk of the latent TB
infection activating some time in the future. Of course, there are all sorts
of
valid medical reasons for not taking that course of meds, and a doc who is
familiar with your details and all of this should be your guide. If you are
unsure about your usual doc, request a consultation with an infectious
disease
specialist.
This has been suggested but as I was clear better than 30 years (at
the time) I thought the risk/reward on this was substantially more risk
than reward. Especially prophylactically.
BTW: just to throw another interesting thing out, I also have
documented false positives to the VDRL and at least one other screening
test.
The VDRL caused all sorts of heck when I got married until my
pediatician got involved.
It is better to have failed your VDRL than to have never loved at
all. (g).

You have immunologic anomalies that would fascinate immunologists and infectious
disease wonks. They should pay you for the privilege of studying you! :-)

Actually, the risk of serious side effects from 6 or so months of anti-TB
prophylaxis increases with age. In your mid-20s, the risk would have been
negligible. At this time, not severe, but not negligible either. Certainly
sounds as though you have had your false + tuberculin status well reviewed and
followed in the past. I agree with you; at this point, a chest x-ray/year on
account of the tuberculin status probably exceeds the risk/benefit ratio.