Tuberculosis

Discussion in 'Health & Wellness' started by Ken Anderson, Mar 14, 2020.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Remember tuberculosis? Did you realize that TB is fairly common in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, brought here by people coming across the river from Mexico, legally or illegally. A lot of third-world diseases come across the border. In fact, they have a fairly large hospital in Harlingen, Texas for TB patients, although a small portion of it was being used for AIDS patients.

    My point in mentioning this is that whenever I am tested for it, I test positive for TB, which I must have picked up from a patient in the 1980s or 1990s. I don't have TB, and I have never had TB, but I test positive for the initial test. After that, they always want to send me for an x-ray to see if I have TB and, of course, I don't. Since x-rays are not without their own hazards, I have been refusing the x-rays and I guess they finally included that in the records, because they don't try anymore.

    It doesn't necessarily follow that you have a disease just because you test positive for it.
     
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  2. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    Those in the health fields are almost always tested for TB. Once exposed to it, one usually will test positive for it even though there is no active disease ongoing.
     
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  3. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Yeah, me too.
    After fretting about the test and finally refusing to take it, I found out that everyone has the tuberculin bacillus but to what degree it has developed is the ultimate question.
    I still will not take the skin test but if whoever insists and being tested for TB might be a deal breaker if I do not, I will go for the x-ray.
    Since just about every mission I ever worked at demanded a TB test, I have been exposed to a lot of x-rays.
     
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  4. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I had to get the skin test in the 1970s in order to become a foster parent, and I tested negative then. However, after working as a paramedic in Texas during the 1980s and 1990s, I tested positive on the skin test, but TB was ruled out by the chest x-ray. I consented to the x-ray in order to become a Boy Scout leader, and again to assure my doctor in Millinocket that I didn't actually have TB several years later, but I wasn't going to go through it every year just so that a doctor could check that off on a list.
     
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  5. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    Despite being exposed to the TB bacillus, I have never tested positive.
     
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  6. Mary Robi

    Mary Robi Veteran Member
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    I started testing positive for TB when I was nine (we had the test in school every year). Every darn year, my whole family had to troop down to the Health Department and get tested, which made me verrrry unpopular with the rest of the family.

    In my mid 20's, I stopped testing positive and haven't had a positive test since. Who knows?
     
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  7. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people each year, and it is a very real problem at our southern border, yet many of the same people who are mandating the closure of restaurants, bars, schools, and other events due to the coronavirus are nevertheless still in favor of open borders.
     
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