Well, since it has been a while, I will let you know what is new.
Back the End of November we had some standard labs run for meds on A & J. One of the annual tests is a test for TB (Tuberculosis) You can have the skin test or the lab test, which is called a QuantiFERON-TB Gold. It can be drawn at the same times as other labs. This test is also done if you test positive when you are given the wheal.
We had the QFTB test done, because J needed to have some other labs drawn because of his Enbrel. His test came back positive, so we had to have more testing done and meet with a TB doc. His final diagnosis came back as Latent TB. This basically means that although he tested positive, he isn't and never has been contagious. He was just exposed to it at some point. We originally thought he would be on an antibiotic for nine months, but now, it will be four because of the medication he is currently taking called Rifampin. It requires that you take 120 doses to cure any TB virus in the body and when it is finished as long as you took the medicine correctly you have the same chance as anyone else of contracting TB. Which here in the United States, is fairly uncommon (according to the doctor.)
We had to have the entire family tested for TB, just to make sure one of us wasn't the carrier. All of us were negative. I keep thinking... well, at least we caught it early and it never went "active" So even though it is a crazy cruddy thing to deal with, Im so thankful for modern medicine! :o)
Same thing happened with Duncan when we had to be tested before we took Benjamin. He had to do a full round of TB meds -7 months I think with liver checks every month even though the x-ray was clear. He had never tested positive before and none of the rest of us tested positive. He has never had any symptoms or anything. So weird.
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