Despite having lived in Africa, My PPD turned positive in med school. BUT I DON'T HAVE TB! Whew.

Recently I had my annual PPD test placed. The area became red and irritated, as always occurs for me, but then something truly horrible happened - it became raised. Not much, but there was a definite bump under my skin. I went in to have it read and to my utter horror it was read as positive. I was justly upset at the possibility of having tuberculosis and had much to ponder as I waited for my chest xray. It just seemed so ironic to me that despite having lived for a total of a year in Africa, that my PPD test would turn positive during the third year of medical school! I had not 1, but 2, negative PPD tests since returning from last adventure in Africa, so it would have to mean that got infected during med school. Still fuming at my bad luck, I went with much indignation to my TB treatment program visit. There I was offered a blood test to confirm that I actually did have TB before I had to take 9 months of a slightly nasty drug called INH (isoniazid). I got the quantiferon TB test, and it turned out to be negative. Today I got the bill for the test: $102.84. I wonder if that goes in the miscellaneous column of my medical education expenses.



A map of TB prevalence by country. Notice that the East African countries I have worked in have a MUCH higher rate of TB prevalence than the US. Good times.



A positive PPD test. This is not a picture of my arm (image from google image search), but the raised area is similar to what I experienced.