Water after 6pm?

6 months of treatment for the Aspergillus, that must have been tough for you. Did you need to monitor with labs during the treatment or were you able to provide sputum samples? My last two labs didn’t show Aspergillus so will discontinue the antifungal however as it was discovered during my bronchoscopy I don’t know if it hasn’t spread to my blood or was never present there/resolved by the meds.

The treatment for Aspergillus (Voriconazole) was tough and I had bloodwork done often for monitoring. All along my sputum samples never shower Aspergillus but the Bronchoscopy did. The doctors say a Bronchoscopy is 99% accurate and sputum samples don't always detect infection.

I was just diagnosed with silent GERD at NJH a couple of weeks ago. Doctors said no food or drink for 2-3 hours before bedtime, "except for small sips of water." Same was said for before doing airway clearance (2 hours). Even before they confirmed I have GERD, they recommended the same for everyone with BE-NTM "because everyone refluxes sometimes."

Thank you for sharing. Interesting about the samples vs bronchoscopy for identifying the Aspergillus. There are so many variables and so much to learn which makes this forum such a great resource.

I was totally shocked with both the Aspergillus and Abscessus results from the Bronchoscopy because neither showed up in the sputum samples only Bronchoscopy. There are so many people that don't get a Bronchoscopy and their infections go untreated because their sputum samples are negative. It is such a hard call because no one wants to get a Bronchoscopy very often.

I was totally shocked with both the Aspergillus and Abscessus results from the Bronchoscopy because neither showed up in the sputum samples only Bronchoscopy. There are so many people that don't get a Bronchoscopy and their infections go untreated because their sputum samples are negative. It is such a hard call because no one wants to get a Bronchoscopy very often.

Were you having any symptoms or CT changes when you had the bronchoscopy and received this Diagnosis? But the random sputum samples you submitted were negative? Or were you unable to produce a sputum sample?

I was told samples were the preferred method for many reasons - cost, invasiveness etc. I haven’t been able to produce a sample so had a bronch about 4-5 months after the start of treatment. I’ve actually had quite a few performed prior to all of this but it seems to be getting harder and harder to rally afterwards, about two days to shake off the anesthesia side effects.