Sunday, June 12, 2011

Can I get tuberculosis if I use a condom


Can I get tuberculosis if I use a condom?
My new girlfriend has dormant tb. Will I still get tb if I use a condom? Is kissing her a bad idea? I haven't done anything with her...yet.
Infectious Diseases - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Makes no difference if you use a condom, since TB is not spread through sexual contact. Contact with saliva and exhaled water droplets could be an issue - but see the info below. From the Wikipedia entry for TB - note the last line: = = = = = = When people suffering from active pulmonary TB cough, sneeze, speak, or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets 0.5 to 5 µm in diameter. A single sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets. Each one of these droplets may transmit the disease, since the infectious dose of tuberculosis is very low and inhaling less than ten bacteria may cause an infection. People with prolonged, frequent, or intense contact are at particularly high risk of becoming infected, with an estimated 22% infection rate. A person with active but untreated tuberculosis can infect 10–15 other people per year. Others at risk include people in areas where TB is common, people who inject drugs using unsanitary needles, residents and employees of high-risk congregate settings, medically under-served and low-income populations, high-risk racial or ethnic minority populations, children exposed to adults in high-risk categories, patients immunocompromised by conditions such as HIV/AIDS, people who take immunosuppressant drugs, and health care workers serving these high-risk clients. Transmission can only occur from people with active — not latent — TB
2 :
First of all, tuberculosis isn't passed through sexual activity (it's not an STD). Secondly, a condom isn't a silver bullet to preventing pregnancy or contraction of STDs. People on here always say "we had sex but we used a condom and I still got herpes?! how did this happen?!" because they don't know that STDs do not need to be passed on through sex. They can be passed on through sex, kissing, oral sex, anal sex, sharing needles, biting, or simply by making contact with infected blood. So your junk might be wrapped, but if your girl has a canker-sore and you're making out, there's still some vulnerability there. Example, if you're playing football with someone that has AIDS, and you both have skinned knees (your knees are bleeding) and your blood mixes with his blood - there is a chance you can get AIDS. In all likelihood, the football example probably will not happen, but is possible. Anyways, so as far as your girl is concerned, you won't get tuberculosis, but at least I taught you something.
3 :
As TB is respiratory, transmitted by droplets from active TB, prophilactic condom would not help; I knew a grandma that lived with family and was dormant but she did not kiss anybody. And I don't recall she ever made conversation. There is a viraliant strong variety from Mexico and South America that is hard to control with usual USA TB medications. Hospitals and schools fired 3 that I know of for having dormant because of legal concerns I think. If a student or somebody came up positive, they MIGHT have gotten a lawyer and sued the school/hospitals. A jury of chosen ones would have awarded BIG money to the infected person out of fear of unknown. One of the TB dormants let cat out of the bag about the firings.
4 :
You can not catch TB in any way from your girlfriend if it is dormant, the condom is irrelevant. The bacteria is suppressed by her immune system in her lungs. The dormant bacteria may become active later in life if her immune system weakens by a medical condition or old age, then the bacteria may break through the immune systems protective capsule the bacteria is trapped in and become active



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Posted by Tuberculosis at 9:48 AM