I need some help trying to decide what to do regarding the TB skin test. I've been researching, talking to people like mad, I just get more confused... My son (nearly five and spent exactly one and a half month in preschool in his whole life, but happened to be the only one in the whole city in the past three years with an instructor that had active TB.) We got a letter home last Friday telling us when the skin tests would be and at first I truthfully didn’t think enough to be wary of the test, I was too worried about the possible transmission. Plus, the term ‘skin test’ makes it sound so benign, which it doesn’t seem to be. I have phoned the CDC in my city and asked to a quantiferon gold blood test but they are extremely reluctant to give it, as it is extremely cost-prohibitive. I will try to get it through my family doc, but I have my doubts if she will be helpful, she is very pro-vax. My son is un vaccinated. I have looked up many past threads, but can find very little on kids getting tested, mostly adults. Has anyone here had his or her kids tested? The test seems to have a ridiculous false positive and false negative rate and seems largely experimental, and full of fairly nasty stuff, but people seem to take it so causally. Am I overreacting? Should I just go directly to the chest x ray? That doesn’t excite me either. Plus, he was only exposed one day a week (rarely two) for one month to this particular women and there are four teachers, so I like to think that that contact time is rather miniscule, On the other hand the idea of dormant TB is a scary thought. Also the other teachers have not had their test results back yet so I don’t feel like bringing him back for the remainder of the month. (I’ve taken him out, because I’m freaked but also because he complains that it’s dull.) No one seems to be able to explain exactly why children are such passive carriers. They say they can’t propel the germs, but I’ve been splattered a few times!
I also don’t quite get how – if the teachers are found to have latent TB – it is safe for them to be around the kids. I mean, every time they get a cold, might they not transfer the virus, potentially? How does one know when it becomes ‘active?’ They are all still working now, which is slightly scary to me as they have not had their results. It’s obvious that the teacher that is no longer there was coming to work ill. No one seems to be able to answer these questions and they seem radically important. Am I just being paranoid? Should I get him the skin test; though the nurse seems to think that it isn’t absorbed in the same way as a vaccine (Isn’t anything delivered subcutaneously absorbed??) should I let him go back for the rest of the month? Help!
To make matters more confusing one TB nurse I talked to made it sound that I would be condemning my own child to terrible things if I didn’t submit to the test, the other said we could look for alternatives ( public health nurse ) and that it might make sense to wait a few weeks to do the skin test if I decided I was going to. They also want all the kids to do a repeat test in two months, more stuff injected into them…
