Tuberculosis

[osin]

I've had TB back in 2006 and had my TB treatment up till august this year. I need some advice, I've been keeping this from all my friends and relatives and earlier this month I've been offered and job and i have to undergo a medical check up. My doctor have to write a letter saying that I'm a TB patient and had finished my treatment. I've been telling lies to people around me saying that I only have an infections because I know once they know that I have TB, they will avoid me. I know theres people out there still narrow minded. Should I tell them the truth before I submitted my reports? I'm so torn right now I need help, what should I do?

[Davy9]

Osin... TB is just another form of bacterial pneumonia. Yes, it is highly infectious but it is also curable and you have been cured. You did the responsible thing in getting it treated and cured in a timely fashion. None of your close friends acquired the disease from you so you must have taken the proper precautions to not infect them also.

How you choose to tell them is your decision. I would simply say: "You remember how sick I was last year? Well I had tuberculosis. I don't know where I got it from but I got treatment for it quickly and was cured. I have been cured for many months now."

Don't allow a stigma from the 19th century stop you from living in the 21st century. You did everything correctly and should be proud of that fact. Now move forward and be done with it.

[osin]

Davy 9, thanks for your advice but I'm afraid they will reject me once they know. I can't imagine people not talking to me.

[Davy9]

Honestly I do not understand why your friends should stop associating with you because you had TB. It has no unsavory acts associated with getting it like you did something awful. You got sick and you got treated and you got cured. Would you stop talking to any of your friends because they had done the same as you? I hope not.

So you intend to not work ever again or what? Worst case scenario your friends dump you because you once had TB. Well if they are that shallow (or stupid) then they are not true friends in the 1st place.

I do not know where you live or the resources available to you and your friends. But you are using a computer to access these forums so I assume they have access to computers also. They can research TB and its treatment.

We had a TB case in the town I live in. The young girl visited relatives oversees and contracted it while there. She was in high school and attended classes and events while actively infected. She had lots of teenage friends and did lots of teenage things with them. Nobody else got TB from her, not one single case. She got treated, cured and went back to her life. You are in the same boat. Your friends don't like it that is their loss and you need better friends. Heck, let them come on here an I'll tell them the way it is personally.

[osin]

Thanks Davy, but sometimes people still think negatively about TB and some of my friends even make jokes about it even after I tell them that it's curable. What if people at work avoid me what should I do?

[Davy9]

Go about your business and ignore them. If they are juvenile enough to tease you then any reaction you give them will only fuel more of it. Make light of it, laugh it off, put it in the past. I think you need to get over it as well. Having had a bout TB is not a bad thing. You did not decide to get it or take any chances to get it. It just happened. Better still is that you managed the incident perfectly.

[osin]

Thank you so much for your advice Davy I guess i need to lighten up a bit.

[mrsibew]

You were diagnosed in 2007 and had treatment until August of 2008? Did you not have to give contact list of people who were exposed to you prior to you being diagnosed and while you were contagious? yes, I agree there are some narrow minded people out there who panic at the thought of TB. Yes, it is a serious disease, yes, you may lose some acquaintances over this, (not friends, because true friends will understand and just want you to get better). Everyone who was in contact with you should have been on a list that you gave the Health department and they should have been notified to be tested. That is the fair and honorable thing to do. There should be no shame attached to TB. Unlike a sexually spread disease, TB can be gotten just by walking through your local Walmart, where a contagious person has gone through and sneezed, coughed, spit or sang, whistled or spit when they spoke. It stays in the air for 2-8 hours, (that's being debated on length of time) but all you have to do is walk through and inhale any of the virus that is left hanging in the air and you could come down with TB. It is not a class disease, it strikes rich and poor alike, just as the chicken pox, flu, cold or any other conotagious illness does. People are ignorant to TB because we think it is exterminated and think of the old sanitarium days. I myself would never have thought of being tested for TB had I not applied to be a DOT therapist for the Health Department (direct observation therapy) and guess what!! I am positive. somewhere, sometime in my life I have been exposed to TB but my body has been able to fight it off and it has never become full blown in my system. But if my immune system becomes severely compromised it more than likely will rear its' ugly head. ( I have liver problems already and chose not to take treatments at this time). If your contacts were exposed to you,and are tested and the test is positive but they have not become contagious, they can take preventive meds, supplied by your local health department free of charge to prevent them from ever having to worry about it. It's nothing to be ashamed of having acquired it, what is shameful is to put others at risk without giving them the benefit of being treated. If you treat it as a dirty little secret, it will be responded to that way when found out, but being open and honest with friends family and contacts, shows that you are a caring human being who values your friends and family enough to say," hey, I want you to be checked, like me or hate me, it's the right thing to do."
That's the only way we can keep this from becoming a larger epidemic than it already is. I wish you luck and hope that you make the right, grownup, responsible decision.