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My husband has severe emphysema and found out four months ago he had a cavity in his lung and has Mac. He's on several antibiotics. Doesn't seem to be much better. Does anyone know how long it takes. Mostly when do u know you are getting better The ID doctor told him by the way u feel. Nothing about any test. Thank u Sandy
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aitarg35939 Tennessee
Posted
Hi Sandy
I'm very sorry for both you and your husband.
As I understand what I just read about MAC - with all the glaring grammatical mistake in the US wiki entry, leaving one to guess a bit -- having MAC means nothing about a hole in one's lung. My guess is that your husband has bronchiectasis colonised by MAC.
Bronchiectasis means there are one or more "dead" areas in the lungs, dead in that the cilia are dead/dying and therefore no longer perform their function of moving things up & out of the lungs. Thus, per my pulmo, one has the perfect warm, dark, stagnant spot for everything to collect, live & grow: phlegm, viruses, bacteria, fungi love these sites. ANY irritation such as ANY kind of smoke, pollen, dust, smog, etc., irritates the lungs into phlegm production, which is supposed to help move the irritant out. But the dead areas instead collect it.
MAC is a horrible thing to have living there. If the wiki article is correct, treatment options are limited due to MAC resisting so many of them. Thus, the doc may be correct and nothing is predictable until one day one of the treatments work and your husband feels better.
No one ever collected my sputum for analysis but I went from August into May without ever more than a month's break from anti-biotics. Then something worked! Glory hallelujah!
Hope current or next treatment is The One for your husband. If I am completely wrong in my guesses about your husband, someone more knowledgeable will pop in & share.
Tennessee aitarg35939
Posted
aitarg35939 Tennessee
Posted
No, but I don't have MAC, at least not so far as we know, and I think doc would've had a clue about that. Just COPD-chronic bronchitis and, now, the bronchiectasis.
Are y'all in Tennessee? I'm in central Texas.