Hello doctor, I am 25 years old. I have a little long story of typhoid. In March, I tested positive for typhoid with widal test and the report shows TO - 1:80, TH - 1:40. My doctor prescribed me some antibiotics and I took them for eight days. I tested again and all titers were negative. I immediately left all the medicines as I though I have recovered. I was fine. In May, again I tested positive for widal test and the report shows TO - 1:160, TH - 1:80, TA - 1:40. This time I took two antibiotics Oflomac 200 and Ceftas 400 mg for about one month. After one month I tested for widal and my TO titer was 1:60 and TH was 1:40. My doctor said me to leave the medicines and he told that it is normal now. Now here my concerns starts, in July and August, I took two widal tests on the interval of one month and both reports were the same as TO - 1:80, TH - 1:40. I showed this report to three doctors and they all said that it is normal. It will take some time to fall the value of titers after typhoid. Symptoms: I never had any fever during all history. I just had joint pains, leg cramps and sometimes stomach pain. My question is have I become a typhoid carrier or this is really normal? And if I have become the carrier then is it curable or not? I am very stressed about it and it has disturbed my whole life. I am asking this because, now these days, when I go for morning walks, I have leg pains whole day with a very bad taste of my tongue.
Hi. Widal test is a vague test which has limitations. It is done only to get an idea of which type of organism might be present. If you see the report again, you will not find any value for a zero level, means the level of a normal person can also not be zero. Anything less than 160 be it 20, 40 or 80 is considered normal. Only 160 and above needs treatment. You have already taken a lot of antibiotics, no need for anything now. Since you are still thinking about carrier state, do the following things: 1. Get a Typhidot IgG and IgM done. Your IgM will be positive as you had past infection. IgG should be negative as this shows present infection. So this way, you get clarity on what is the status of typhoid now. 2. Get a stool routine and culture done. This will show you if you are excreting typhoid bacteria or not and are a carrier or not. The treatment will be decided only once we find something in that. 3. Get an ultrasound of the abdomen done to rule out any swelling of the liver or intestines. Once you have this done, you will be clear with everything. I hope this helps.