anyone ever been treated for TB or know much about it?

TB or not TB
That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows...

Ok, enough butchered Shakespeare

Grandma had it.  We all had to get tine tested.  Basically you are exposed to PROTEINS unique to TB and if you have ever been exposed to TB, you will show a positive.

Next step is the chest radiographs.  TB forms tuberecules in the lungs which are calcified depots of the TB bacteria.  When your immune system is working, the bacteria wall up in their tubercules but get sick and they come out, eventually killing you.

If you are positive on tine but negative on the radiographs, you might still have to go on antibiotics.  But a double positive means antibiotics plus a face mask and warnings to completely take ALL meds.

There are some nasty strains out there.

After some deployments one year to Thailand and Korea, we all got tested. ALOT of us came back positve! This just means we were exposed to the bacteria somewhere along the line. No one actually had symptoms or  "active TB".
I filled out some questionares, took a chest xray and they put us all on a med called INH (I forget what it stands for) for six months.
Supposedly,due to the medications, I will never devolope active TB and I am effectively immune. This just adds to my superpowers and near-invincibility.
If you test postive its really no big deal as long as you dont have any symptoms yet. Just dont forget to take the INH everyday or you may develope a resistant strain of TB (called "super TB"). If you get that you're fucked.

We had an epidemic of sorts at a jail I worked at and all officers were given mega doses of penicillin.  That's all I remember.  I remember being tested and having my chest Xrayed and I took a month's supply of antibiotics.

Patty

I was exposed to TB when I was in nursing school and my body made antibodies to it.  Hence, when I take a PPD skin test I show positive.  They even made me take 6 months of prophylactic isoniazid therapy.
Now, if you actually get TB then that's a different story.

that's right!
INH = isonaizad

Quoted: anyone ever been treated for TB or know much about it?

treated as in you have TB, or tested for TB?

Both tested and treated over 30 years ago, when they still had hospitals dedicated to TB patients and treatments.

Had to take isonaizad (and something else. I think it was a vitamin) for a year, as well as chest xrays every year for about 10 years.

They found it during a routine PPD tests they gave in high school. Almost kept me out of the Navy when I tried to enlist. I had to have my personal physician call the doctor who gave me my initial physical and yell at him. The processing center in Boston used a retired Army doctor that gave all the physicals in the area, regardless of what branch you enlisted in. This guy was at least 80 years old and hadn't kept up on treatments and assumed that exposure to TB was a reason to fail my physical. My doctor pounced on this guy and called him a F'n idiot who should go back to the retirement home and stay out of the medical field.

Although successfully treated for TB, I'm now a "PPD Converter" and can't take PPD tests anymore. My reaction to the PPD tests gets worse with each test. The reaction to the last PPD test I had many years ago caused my entire lower arm to swell and react. Was not a pretty sight.

Quoted: I was exposed to TB when I was in nursing school and my body made antibodies to it.  Hence, when I take a PPD skin test I show positive.  They even made me take 6 months of prophylactic isoniazid therapy.

Yeah - I remember that I had to take a TB test when I started grad school, and of course tested positive because a lot of European countries used LIVE vaccines on kids when I was small, which has the same effect.

But of course the people at the student health service got all worried and offered me treatment, etc.  Morons.  If you want to see REAL TB, all they needed to do was get in the car and drive down to Cabrini Green or the Robert Taylor projects - plenty of TB there.  Somehow, they weren't so interested in actually dealing with people who actually have TB, and instead just hassled international students.  

Quoted: Had to take isonaizad (and something else. I think it was a vitamin) for a year, as well as chest xrays every year for about 10 years.

B6.  That is kind of a sore spot with me because the idiots who made me take isoniazid for 6 months didn't tell me that and I didn't find out that I was supposed to be doing that until I had already finished the 6 months.    I was a nursing student, not a nurse, and I didn't know that.

thanks for the info guys, I go to check on those results tomorrow and then go to the doctor for a chest X-ray. thanks again

FL