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Fungal culture
I recently had a bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage to get lung fluid to test for mac. Along with acid fast culture for mac , a fungal culture is also in progress. My question is how long does it take to process results for fungal culture? Also, what fungal species are usually tested in fungal culture? And lastly, if fungus is found, are they usually treated? Is the treatment lenghty like mac? Thank you
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Irene 5, Hi.
This is a quick reply.
I googled: Can you have a MAC infection and Aspergillosis at the same time.?
It appears from what came up it is something that can happen. What do you think?
Barbara
My fungal culture returns from NJH after a month
You are correct. But aspergillosis which I had after having years of MAC is a fungus. I had pseudomonas last year after having had a bad bout with RSV. Aspergillosis is usually treated with Vfend or the pricier Cresemba. Pseudomonas was treated for me with Levoquin long term. Irene5
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1 ReactionI have learned in life that anything is possible. Generally I have found one follows the other. - just replacing one gift with another. But aspergillosis is easier to treat than MAC. Reminds me of the book “TheMitten!” Move over I’m coming in! Irene5
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1 ReactionBarbara, I don't know, and I rather doubt, that the MAC meds treated the aspergillus infection. Maybe the doctors didn't treat it because it wasn't very severe or because they wanted to treat the MAC first or something else, who knows? I see my local ID doc in a month and I'll ask him to clarify.
I don't know how common it is to have the fungal and the MAC infection concurrently, but I certainly did.
I am not on any medications for MAI and have untreated "apiotrichum mycotoxinivorans" yeast/fungus. My doctor at NJH and I had decided not to treat, as there didn't seem to be a major progression in late July of last year.
I have a 6 month check up in 2 weeks at NJH: CT scan, spirometry, sputum culture and the doctor consultation. My most recent sputum test (January 8) shows "abnormal" fungus culture and came back in a little over a week after NJH received the sample, but it took about 2 more weeks for the lab to report the kind of fungus it is (consistently the same), which has been a typical time frame over the past year.
I too often failed to ask the doctors, why this, why that etc. , at the time they are saying what they want me to do or why they said what they said. Hope I get better 'on my feet' with that aspect of working with doctors now that for the first time in my life, these last couple of years, I have had to visit and converse with doctors, the professionals who are not necessarily 'teachers,' with my first chronic health problem.
Barbara
I would love to hear what you are doing to "keep it that way" or negative.
Thank you,
Aida