My daughter had to take a tb blood test (gold) to enter grad school. To her surprise she tested positive. Her X-ray was clean and she has no symptoms. It is a mystery how she was exposed. She is getting mixed messages from the health department and primary care provider. We understand that she is considered to have latent TB and needs to take medication for 3 months. What is everyone’s experience with the different medications in terms of side effects? How will she know if she is re-exposed with another case of latent tb and needs another round of meds if her blood tests will always show positive. Does anyone know of a case where the initial test was inaccurate and retesting showed negative or is this just wishful thinking?
Any advice is greatly appreciated
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osteo2021
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Hi osteo2021, I am sorry this is a worrying time for you and your daughter. I can't answer your questions from personal experience - hopefully some of our other members will be able to. I can give you some useful pointers though.
It is good news that the latent TB was picked up this way as it can be treated before it has the chance to cause any harm. The treatment is also shorter and better tolerated than treatment for active TB (when the TB bacteria are reproducing and damaging the body).
It is an unfortunate truth that the current TB blood and skin tests can only find antibodies that demonstrate exposure to TB, rather than the continued presence of the TB bacteria itself. As you rightly say this means she is likely to always test positive. The tests are very accurate, by the way.
Take heart though, in a low-incidence country like the US (I am assuming you are based there as you refer to grad school) it is unlikely that she will be unfortunate enough to be exposed to TB a second time. Also, as you better understand the condition now you can be on the look out! It is always worth knowing the symptoms of active TB so you can take action if you or anyone you know experiences them: cough, fever, weight loss, loss of appetite, tiredness, night sweats.
Just to confirm, it is possible that her body fought off the bacteria and it is gone from her body— since the test only indicates presence of antibody not the actual bacteria? I realize this may not make any difference in terms of taking the medication because the testing will not tell one way or another if the bacteria is present , correct?
Do some people easily fight off the bacteria without displaying symptoms?
It certainly would be much better if there was a test for the presence of bacteria and not just the antibody. Why is this not possible?
It is possible though it is more likely than not the bacteria are present.
A strong immune system is capable of clearing TB bacteria straight away but this does not leave the lasting immune response seen with latent or active TB.
Latent TB tends to occur when the immune system is too weak to clear the bacteria but strong enough to control it.
The risk then, of course, is that immune pressures such as other illnesses or stress can then stop the immune system from controlling the bacteria and it becomes active causing illness.
You are spot on that we need a better test! Unfortunately, as TB is concentrated in some of the poorer areas of the world, there is little investment in R&D. The charity TB Alert, which hosts this forum, is working on this: tbalert.org
Hello Helen. I was in contact with a Nottingham professor who is in research with the company who is developing the Actiphage blood test. Ironically although she replied immediately to my two separate last year, she has has not replied to my question to her this year. I got a strong impression she was very helpful re her texts.
Because a doctor's test results seem surprisingly 'dodgy' in terms of my quantiferon results, this year I have a suspicion that she has been 'got at'?
Her research regarding Actiphage and the company she is an associate, and the Actiphage blood test is being trialled on cattle in Wales but she said that the test for humans is early days yet. That was a year, or so ago. Have you any recent data?
It seems revolutionary and helpful to all and sundry due to the difficulty re testing with the latest NAAT and Gnome and PCR testing to date.
It can be seen that the Actiphage test, due to it's more instantaneous results than previous tests, carries with it many implications but has many incredibly beneficial
achievements -for some.
In my case I have always felt I'm in a smoke screen scenario and I see on this forum other 'innocents' feel the same!
Hey I gave both my children Tb that was diagnosed as latent Tb don’t be too alarmed all I can say is the positive thing is they have caught it now and not once it is active x both my children suffered stomach pains and general feeling of tiredness and headaches nothing to serious I just made sure school was aware of the symptoms and things . They have just had there last review and both have finished there medication . It’s hard to try and make children take there medication I’m not gunna lie there very big tablets for them. Feel free to inbox me if you need to chat xxx Also the re infection is the thing that confuses me but the doctor didn’t seem to want to discuss this further with me to be honest xx Sammi
Thank you for your encouragement and support. It means a lot! The diagnosis is frightening and confusing — so it is good to know you are working through it.
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