disease in the background contemplation

[burntcopper]

Tuberculosis. Or TB, as we more commonly know it.

Odd thing. In the UK, it's an ever-present thing. Not an 'argh, we have contagion', but everyone knows about it. Unless you're an immigrant, everyone - and I mean *everyone* has the inoculation scar on their arm they got at 15, which was bloody painful and for most people, puss-ridden until it healed. We learn maybe a tiny bit about it in school as one of the diseases of history, but that's about it. The most we really know about it is that it's a disease to be - not wanted. Like measles, but more severe, and everyone can find their TB / BCG scar in two seconds.

I know in America you don't get inoculated, so how is it treated/viewed there?

Comments

[juleskicks.livejournal.com]

Not as much common knowledge, I imagine -- health care professionals, however, have to be tested annually and inoculated on a regular basis, which I know owing to being the daughter of one. *g* In fact, most nurses test positive after a certain number of years on the job, and have to go through more rigorous testing every year instead of the usual cursory one, even if they don't actually have it.

[bexone.livejournal.com]

I'm not even in patient care, but since I work in a facility with a number of immune-compromised patients, I have to get a PPD placed and read every six months. A lot of our nurses are PPD-positive, so they get annual chest x-rays to check for active disease. We also had a new ancillary hire who came up positive on both the PPD and the chest x-ray; she had to go on a drug regimen and was limited in both what she could do and how she could do it (wearing a mask, always) until a certain number of her monthly chest x-rays had showed clean. Teachers and other people who work with kids also have to get checked annually, and kids have to be tested every so often when they're in school. I've never understood why we don't get inoculated; it's endemic in hospitals around where I live, and it's getting worse.

*here through friendsfriends*

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

Kids don't get inoculated here regularly. Health professionals and I believe teachers do.

I think that may change soon. We hear more and more about antibiotic resistant TB, and my mom's always going on about how people refuse to stick with their drug regimens, which feeds the fire.

[brigid31.livejournal.com]

I think that most people don't really know about it all. I happen to be from the place where they first cured TB so I have extensive knowledge of TB and no people who survived the disease but many other people have no clue that it exists, aside from in the movies.

[missiedith.livejournal.com]

My year at school all got theirs when they were 13. Months of fun punching people in the arm ensued. And I can't actually find my scar, it's so tiny, but I had mine when I was 9 due to the living abroad thing, and thus managed to avoid the arm-punching.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

yeah, the two people (aside from one who came up naturally immune in the tests) in my class who'd been inoculated as kids - I was one, the other had lived in the UAE - have practically nothing, you tend to go '...er, is that slightly discoloured mark it?' But we did sulk as we had no fun pus stories to tell.

[missiedith.livejournal.com]

I just felt smug instead. And glad I had no younger brother. I swear, those with younger brothers around to provide extra punching have noticeably larger scars. There should be a study on this.

[ladydchaos.livejournal.com]

hmmm i always wondered WHAT that scar was on people...cos i don't have one......

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

's how you can tell the bloke in the Athena L'Enfant poster is British. (well-muscled bloke holding baby that everyone had on their wall during the eighties/early 90s)

[ladydchaos.livejournal.com]

i don't remember that poster....

[cynicalcylon.livejournal.com]

You got yours at 15?
Blimey.
I had mine when I was about 6 or so.

I learnt all I know from my mother.
She had it when she was younger so knew how nasty it was first hand.
Only had a very mild case, but she was still quaranteened & kept isolated for months.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

actually got it when I was about two, everyone at school got it at fifteen.

[cynicalcylon.livejournal.com]

Mum got us all done at the same time, so I guess my brother (the youngest) was 2 when he got his done.
I was never out of the country so was never pushed to get it earlier.
That & the fact that the borough me & my sister lived in for a couple years were really shit about immunising kids.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

One of our students had TB a few years ago - she became translucent skinned, delicately rosy-cheeked and rather delicate looking (and according to my mother, who remembers kids and adults in her street who died of TB, becoming porcelain-doll-like in appearance is a usual symptom). Anyway, this girl got better, yay! (And apparently every native Dubliner over the age of sixty or so has TB scars on their lungs, doctors say cheerily).

[popfantastic.livejournal.com]

We don't get vaccinated, but I'm pretty sure we get tested a lot -- I know I was getting PPD tests well before I was actually immune-compromised, during elementary and middle school. So...maybe my view is skewed, but I think most people know of TB, although I would guess a lot of people think it's more rare than it actually is.

[mrmrsmith.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm aware I've be innoculated because it around in South Africa. In fact I had to have a chest x-ray for TB as part of the requirements for coming here

[random-c.livejournal.com]

I didn't have it, because I was off sick, both when they did the test and when they did the actual injection.