Thanks, Katie. I appreciate it. I found one patient so far on my other support group. She has been followed over 2-3 positive cultures, but now Mayo wants to treat her with a course of two IV antibiotics, followed by oral. Of course her situation may be completely different. So many factors to consider in whether to treat or just monitor.

Thanks for the references, K! I saw some of those pictures of cutaneous M. fortuitum infections. Yuck. Yet another reason I'm glad I don't get manicures/pedicures or any spa services.

Yes, I am symptomatic...cough, fatigue, worse dyspnea...all of this starting in the late summer/early fall. And an October CT showed new nodules. The plan right now is to wait for the remaining cultures, see if anything else shows up such as MAC, perhaps get another CT and then decide. My docs have been pretty good so far about weighing all the evidence and including me in the decision process.

Thanks, Made! You and I must have both been searching at the same time yesterday and I stumbled on that one too! I thought the connection between reflux and NTM infection in that case was interesting. I've been learning that some doctors are working on the theory that some NTM infections start by refluxed infected water that is aspirated into the lungs.

Hello Merry. Oh really that's cool that we searched it at the same time. Oh I see. So they mentioned about the connection of reflux and NTM. I wasn't reading it throughoutly. Wish you the best Merry.