Are there any alternative or new drugs besides Isoniazid for tuberculosis?

P

Peyt

Senior Member
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Wow, does this mean Isoniazid is still the only choice??
I was skin tested 32 years ago and was positive for TB although did not have the active symptoms... I was prescribed Isoniazid that I was suppose to take for 9 months. Well soon after 3 weeks I had such violent side effects(sever headaches, and insomnia) that I had to stop...

32 years later, I still have blood in my mucus daily. I was hoping if I go to my Doctor to discuss this, I could at least ask
for a new medication or therapy besides Isoniazid. It's said that in 32 years nothing new has been done for this disease. :bang-head:
 
Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
Peyt said:
Wow, does this mean Isoniazid is still the only choice??
I was skin tested 32 years ago and was positive for TB although did not have the active symptoms... I was prescribed Isoniazid that I was suppose to take for 9 months. Well soon after 3 weeks I had such violent side effects(sever headaches, and insomnia) that I had to stop...

32 years later, I still have blood in my mucus daily. I was hoping if I go to my Doctor to discuss this, I could at least ask
for a new medication or therapy besides Isoniazid. It's said that in 32 years nothing new has been done for this disease. :bang-head:
Click to expand...

There are at least a dozen different drugs for TB and traditionally treatment has involved using a mixture of 3 of these, according to organism sensitivity or other factors. Isoniazid has often been used as a preventive therapy where latent TB is suspected but overt disease is not present.
 
Basilico

Basilico

Florida
Messages
948
I just recently learned about andrographis (andrographolide is the main active compound) on another thread that some people here have used to recover from infections more quickly. I'm still in the process of researching it, but it seems to have potential specifically for TB. Might be worth looking into.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26245695
 
P

Peyt

Senior Member
Messages
679
Location
Southern California
Jonathan Edwards said:
There are at least a dozen different drugs for TB and traditionally treatment has involved using a mixture of 3 of these, according to organism sensitivity or other factors. Isoniazid has often been used as a preventive therapy where latent TB is suspected but overt disease is not present.
Click to expand...
I would call mine a latent version since whenever they did chest x-ray they could not find any activity. So this is why I kinda let it go... To this day, I still don't know if I really have/had TB or its just dry sinuses that cause the blood showing up in the mucus all the time. But I also have Chronic Fatigue.
 
Basilico

Basilico

Florida
Messages
948
Peyt said:
] I was skin tested 32 years ago and was positive for TB although did not have the active symptoms... I was prescribed Isoniazid that I was suppose to take for 9 months.
Click to expand...


@Peyt I just recently had to get a blood test to check for any sign of TB before starting an immune suppresant; I'd previously gotten the skin test before, so I was curious as to why my doctor specified that I had to be tested via blood. I found this on Quest Diagnostic's website:

[SIZE=3][B]Clinical Significance [/B][/SIZE]
[I]tuberculosis[/I] is a communicable disease caused by infection with [I]M. tuberculosis[/I] complex. Infection results in either acute disease or Latent TB Infection (LTBI), a non-communicable asymptomatic condition. The main purpose of diagnosing the latent stage is to consider medical treatment for preventing overt disease. [B]Until recently, the tuberculin skin test was the only available method for diagnosing LTBI. QuantiFERON®-TB gold eliminates false positive skin test due to BCG vaccination and most Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) and is an objective, reproducible qualitative test. There are no side effects or adverse reactions due to patient hypersensitivity, and no "booster effect", whereby the first test induces a false positive response on re-testing.[/B] There is no need for follow-up patient visits to obtain test results. [url]http://www.questdiagnostics.com/testcenter/BUOrderInfo.action?tc=19453&labCode=SEA[/url]

So while you could have had a Latent infection, it seems like the skin tests were prone to false positives. Might be worthwhile to get the TB gold test to verify what your status actually is.
 
P

Peyt

Senior Member
Messages
679
Location
Southern California
Basilico said:


@Peyt I just recently had to get a blood test to check for any sign of TB before starting an immune suppresant; I'd previously gotten the skin test before, so I was curious as to why my doctor specified that I had to be tested via blood. I found this on Quest Diagnostic's website:

[SIZE=3][B]Clinical Significance [/B][/SIZE]
[I]tuberculosis[/I] is a communicable disease caused by infection with [I]M. tuberculosis[/I] complex. Infection results in either acute disease or Latent TB Infection (LTBI), a non-communicable asymptomatic condition. The main purpose of diagnosing the latent stage is to consider medical treatment for preventing overt disease. [B]Until recently, the tuberculin skin test was the only available method for diagnosing LTBI. QuantiFERON®-TB gold eliminates false positive skin test due to BCG vaccination and most Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) and is an objective, reproducible qualitative test. There are no side effects or adverse reactions due to patient hypersensitivity, and no "booster effect", whereby the first test induces a false positive response on re-testing.[/B] There is no need for follow-up patient visits to obtain test results. [url]http://www.questdiagnostics.com/testcenter/BUOrderInfo.action?tc=19453&labCode=SEA[/url]

So while you could have had a Latent infection, it seems like the skin tests were prone to false positives. Might be worthwhile to get the TB gold test to verify what your status actually is.
Click to expand...

Wow, this is great, thank you so much,
I will ask my Dr. to order it for me .
 
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