Hi, I have a daughter. She is 14 years old. Lately she had some problems with breathing. Also she was suffering from an annoying chest pain. I have decided to take her to a doctor. They suspect it is tuberculosis. They want to run some diagnosis to be positive that it is tuberculosis, but she is afraid. What will they do to her?
Nothing that you or your daughter should be afraid of. I had the tuberculosis too. In the treatment the most important thing is in the high index of suspicion. The diagnosis can easily be missed in an elderly nursing-home resident or a teenager with a focal infiltrate. Often it is diagnosed by a chest radiograph when respiratory symptoms of a patient are abnormal. The longer the delay between the onset of symptoms and the diagnosis, the more likely is the finding of cavitary disease. So hurry up and do it.