First, I want to welcome you to Mayo Connect, a community of people living with a wide variety of conditions and diseases who try to help one another. We are not medical professionals and don't give medical advice but we share our successes and failures in an effort to help one another along the way.

If you have MAC or a similar infection in your lungs, unless it is TB, it is not contagious to others. It is an opportunistic infection that takes up residence in the lungs of some people,usually with an underlying conditions like Bronchiectasis, COPD or Cystic Fibrosis. Has anyone mentioned these to you? That means, if you feel well enough, it is probably OK to work. However with one probable infection in your lungs, you may be more susceptible to other illnesses, so take extra precautions to stay safe.

One possible thing you can do to hasten getting an exact diagnosis is to ask your primary provider to order a sputum culture - these can take weeks or longer for the bacteria to grow out and show the specific bacteria in your lungs. That way part of the diagnostic will already be done by the time you see a pulmonologist. An alternative is to see an infectious disease specialist if that is faster than seeing pulmonology.

If you look at some of the other discussions in this group, you will find many references to sputum cultures and treatment options.
Use the search box at the top of any discussion to narrow down the list.

You can find more info here: https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/mac-lung-disease

Feel free to do some reading and come back with more questions.
Sue