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Length of Time on Antibiotic Regimen
MAC & Bronchiectasis | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (17)Comment receiving replies
I am told it will be a year or more. I started and am on three times a week, 1, 2, and 3 pills at 500 mg each. They coincide with your medication numbers by the antibiotic. I have no cought and will be getting a blood test next week which will be the baseline for the virus load, I believe that is what it checks. My symptoms are from the bronchiectasis. And that only started from getting a cold.
Replies to "I am told it will be a year or more. I started and am on three..."
Kristi - I am totally confused! Are you being treated for non-tubercular mycobacteria (referred to as NTM, MAI or MAC), pseudomonas, or something else? Were you diagnosed using a sputum culture or a bronchoscopy?
The current bacterial infection loads for NTM and pseudomonas are determined by sputum cultures, which take 2 weeks for pseudomonas and 6-8 weeks for NTM to grow sufficiently to be fully identified. I am unfamiliar with any blood tests for this purpose.
Maybe they are checking to be sure your kidneys and liver are functioning properly, as these medications can affect them.
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Thank you, Kristi, for your feedback. I didn't have a cough either ... in the very beginning. A calcium score prescribed by my cardio doctor indicated infiltrates in my lungs. So, no symptoms, but these infiltrates. Another year passed before I had a definite diagnosis of MAC and began the antibiotics. By then I was chirping more than coughing. Now I'm coughing, on and off during the day but mostly when I wake up in the morning. Coughing and sometimes losing my breath. I'm reading here for the first time about airway cleansing. I don't know what that involves. Do you?