In March our 10 year old son had a positive AFB for mycobacterium avium. This culture came back smear positive and because of this being the first time mycobacterium had ever showed up in a culture for him and it was in such high quantity in the smear, our Doctor thought for sure it would come back as abscesses. It surprised everyone when it came back as avium. He had 3 cultures after that and NTMB never showed up again. It left everyone kind of scratching their head. Fast forward to August and he had another smear positive, high quantity for mycobacterium culture. Our Doctor assumed it would come back as avium since the culture in March did. Well, it came back fast growing which they are telling me will be abscesses when it is confirmed. We had another culture done which they thought would be smear positive since the one 3 weeks before was. Well, it wasn’t smear positive. It may still show up in the culture when it is final, but nothing yet. Due to the nature of the treatments for both avium and abscesses, I am being told we need two positive tests to treat. We had a CT scan done to look for evidence, but they did not see evidence of NTMB. Though they did see an area of infection. He has gone from an FEV of 110% to 90% within the past year. The only other things he has been treated for was steno and staph. Has anyone else experienced this pattern? We are afraid we are missing something and I know this bugs are not things that should be left untreated, but I also understand the significance of the treatment.
Response:
Ratatosk September 6
I’m assuming a throat culture was done and not a sputum culture since it’s quite difficult to get a sputum culture from a baby, heck it’s difficult to get one from my teenager since he rarely coughs.
Is your child symptomatic? Have they discussed doing a bronchoscopy to check out the lungs and gather a better sample?
Response:
Ratatosk September 6
I’m assuming a throat culture was done and not a sputum culture since it’s quite difficult to get a sputum culture from a baby, heck it’s difficult to get one from my teenager since he rarely coughs.
Is your child symptomatic? Have they discussed doing a bronchoscopy to check out the lungs and gather a better sample?