Possible exposure to TB

[Nursesrule5]

Hey there,

I may have been exposed to a patient with active TB less than a week ago. I happen to be due for a TB test this week and was wondering how long after exposure does it take to test positive? I usually get the quantiferon gold test rather than the skin test. Im starting to get pretty anxious and would really like some insight on how this process goes!

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Your employee health department should answer this as we cannot provide medical advice here per TOS.

[CatalinaRN]

I tested positive for TB a few weeks ago. Make sure you get the quantiferon gold, don't do the skin test if you think you might come up positive. If you test positive, they'll take a chest X-ray to determine if you have active or latent TB. Then depending on the rules at the facility you work at you might be required to be treated for latent TB. It reduces your risk of having the TB become active to less than 1%, as opposed to the I think 10% chance you would have if you don't take the latent TB treatment. The latent TB treatment I'm on is a combination of Rifampin and Isoniazid, 900mg once a week for 12 weeks. After the 4th week of treatment I went in to get an LFT to make sure everything was ok. The meds give me a headache and I feel nauseous for the evening but that's about it. It also turns my pee orange.

I was really upset and nervous after this happened, but now I'm halfway through the treatment and I feel better about it. Instead of getting an annual blood or skin test, you'll just end up getting an annual X-ray instead. By no means am I giving any medical advice, I'm just letting you know that there are others out there that have gone through this. I know I'm a bit late in the game but have you received your results yet?