I have lymph node TB. I started medicine from 23rd of january 2010. First three month i have taken combinational medicine without any improvement. I had fever, coughing, vomiting etc. After three month the doctor changed the combinational medicine to divisional medicine and add two more medicine amikacine (1gm a day) and levofloxacin.When i start these medicine i felt little bit better then before. it also need to mention that i also had taken steroid for two months. first month 50 mg per day then other 15 days 40 mg per day and last 15 days 20 mg per day. I stopped to take steroid on 7th june. After that i started to feel bad again. i talked with the doctor about this matter. the doctor then do an x-ray and told me that there is some problem in my lung. they are suspecting that the tb spread into the lung. now i am into the hospital and they stop all the medicine of tb that i had taken. the doctor did CT-scan, take sputum test (sputum result is negative), gastric wash, they also have taken samples from my lymph node (the PCR result of lymph node is TB) to do the culture. Culture result will take at least 6 weeks. I am in hospital about 2 weeks. during this time i am not taking any tb medecine. I talked with the doctor abt the medicine they will start it again when they will get the result.
Does it harmful for me that i have tb but I not taking any medicine?
I have done FNAC and open biopsy. The result of both test was TB. The lymph mode that are infected are Supraclavicular and hilar lymph node. At the beginning i also have tested the sputum but the result was -ve. Due to the increasing the size of lymph node, the doctor has given steroid. But when i have done the biopsy the did not tell anything about the culture of lymph node. Divisional medicine means 4 separate medicine (ethambutol , isoniazid, pyrazinamide, rifampicin). When i start medicine i was in bangladesh now i am in sweden. I came sweden on 17th May.
How was your first diagnosis of lymph nodal TB made. Where were the nodes? How big were they? Was a biopsy done? What do you mean by divisional medicine? Why did your doctor give you steroids? The improvement in your symptoms may not have been due to your TB drugs, it could have been due to the steroids.
The diagnosis of TB in your case is not strong. What were the CT chest findings, was a repeat node biopsy done? May be your doctor is considering some alternate diagnosis. So i don’t think stopping the drug will harm you now, as there was no definite improvement anyway in the first place. Talk to your doctor, clear your doubts. Everything will be fine once the diagnosis is made!
Yes as far as i know, stopping treatment of TB in the middle of it is not good. The TB bugs might become resistant in the long term.
However there are some complications that can be caused my the medications, liver problems is one of the reasons to stop the TB medications and change to other ones that are safer but usually less effective.
Maybe this is what happened to you , you should ask your doctor about this.