Tuberculosis. My darling little disease

About a year ago I was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and started treatment.

As a healthcare worker, I get tested each year because there is a high risk of exposure to TB and it is highly contagious. TB is spread in the air when someone coughs. The only way to protect your self from exposure is to wear a N95 filtered mask.

What most people don’t realize is that you can have TB and it will live latent in your body for years before you have any symptoms. It isn’t until you are immuno-compromised that you develop symptoms and are at risk for dying of TB. This means that if you are not in a high risk type of vocation (teacher, nurse, doctor, prison guard, social worker) then you will likely never be tested until symptoms show up.

FYI typical symptoms of Active TB infection include:

• night sweats
• weightless
• fever
• cough
• bloody sputum

The medications most commonly used to treat TB are isoniazid (INH) and rifampin (RIF). The treatment is toxic to the liver, so during treatment you have to abstain from drinking alcohol and taking certain medications like tylenol (acetaminophen). You have to be on the look out for any signs of Liver damage such as jaundicing, lack of appetite, clay colored stools, bleeding and bruising. You also have to take vitamin b-12 while taking the medications to prevent painful parathesias in the hands and feet. I ended up having to double my dose of b12 because my hands and feet were burning in pain at night and sometimes during the day too. It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep.

I was on INH for 9 months. It was awful. I was tired all the time and felt like I didn’t have any energy for the things that I enjoy like kitesurfing, surfing, and hiking outdoors. I couldn’t believe that at my young age I was using a pill organizer and taking medications every morning.

I was told my the Health Department nurse that if I completed all 9 months of treatment that statistically I have a 80% chance of not dying of TB. That’s pretty good odds…. but thats still not good enough! Its the best treatment available so that’s what I did. I completed treatment around new years of 2018 and I celebrated by having a lot to drink!! :):)

I developed this weird inability to clear my throat about 2 years ago and interestingly my mom developed it too. I thought may be I had developed an allergy to something, because I never had this issue before and there was also a lot of phlegm production too. (I know, gross) Once I had been diagnosed with TB, naturally I considered this throat clearing issue to be related. My TB nurse however, was not convinced and reassured me that it was a coincidence. Her skepticism (and incompetence) angered me, so I had my family and close friends get tested for TB also. Everyone’s tests came back negative, thankfully. Well, everyone’s but one. My boyfriend. And this is a whole new saga to write about.

Today he went to get tested for TB for his new job because he is now an RN too and this is just protocol for employment. That is why I am thinking about this all again. I’ll write about his situation in a separate post, because I would like to get his permission first. I will tell you this; Public health workers and health care workers in general are not all created equally. As in every profession there is incompetence and laziness. The nurse in charge of infectious disease in Carteret County is lazy and completely incompetent. I can say this personally from my account of being a patient of hers for 9 months, and I also witnessed how she screwed up the testing for my boyfriend. She should not be in charge of such an important matter as protecting and treating the public who have TB and other communicable diseases. She would be better serving the community in another role.

for more information on TB visit the CDC website at
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/default.htm