Contents:
- Medical Video: Tuberculosis: What You and Your Family Should Know (Navajo)
- Overview of pulmonary tuberculosis (pulmonary TB)
- Can TB recover fully?
- TB drugs must be taken regularly for 6 months if you want to recover completely
- Even though it has been completely cured, can pulmonary TB cause scars on the lungs?
Medical Video: Tuberculosis: What You and Your Family Should Know (Navajo)
Tuberculosis (Pulmonary TB) is still a scourge of a disease that is frightening to the world community, especially in Indonesia. Tthe rate of cure of all tuberculosis cases in Indonesia in 2016 was only around 85%, declining from 2008 which managed to reach 90 percent in accordance with the standards set by the Ministry of Health.TB is even the number one cause of death in Indonesia. In fact, TB treatment is quite simple with antibiotics prescribed by doctors. Then, aCan tuberculosis be completely cured?
Overview of pulmonary tuberculosis (pulmonary TB)
Tuberculosis aka TB or TB is a disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. These bacteria usually attack the lungs so that they are called pulmonary TB. Laymen usually call it lung spots or hollow lungs.
TB is contagious when people with TB produce phlegm or saliva from their mouths which contain germsM. tuberculosis into the air - for example when coughing, sneezing, talking, singing, or even laughing - and then inhaled by someone else. If not treated properly, TB can be fatal.
Pulmonary TB can cause common symptoms such as coughing that lasts 2 weeks or more and coughs up bleeding. Other symptoms that usually arise from tuberculosis include:
- Weakness or fatigue
- Weight loss
- Loss of appetite
- Shivering
- Fever
- Sweating at night
Can TB recover fully?
Although including chronic diseases, tuberculosis can be completely cured. Quoted from Okezone, HM Subuh, Director General of Disease Control and Environmental Control (P2PL) from The Ministry of Health states that to be able to find out that you are fully recovered from TB, it must be confirmed through laboratory tests.
If a BTA examination (how much live TB in sputum) shows a negative result, the risk of transmission to others is lower. In fact, you can be declared fully recovered.
He stated that the chances of TB being completely cured reached 99% if you regularly take medicine every day for 6 consecutive months. If it's not lived properly, the germs only weaken for a moment and then strengthen so you get the impression that your disease is "relapsing". When in fact your disease never heals completely.
TB drugs must be taken regularly for 6 months if you want to recover completely
Dewi Kusumawati, a physician in charge of the TB-Dots clinic at St. Elizabeth Hospital Semarang, stated that the Lung TB bacteria is a type of bacteria acid resistant. If treated with antibiotics, other germs between 3 and 5 days have healed. But research shows that new TB bacteria will die completely after 6 months of treatment according to the doctor's recommended dose.
In the first two months of treatment, you will feel better and may assume that you have recovered. But actually tuberculosis bacteria are still alive, but still in a state of "fainting" because of being hit by several antibiotics at once. Therefore, a fixed dose must be continued as instructed by the doctor so that tuberculosis can heal.
If you neglect treatment, these "faint" bacteria will wake up and strengthen so that your condition worsens again. Even worse, tuberculosis bacteria will become immune to antibiotic drugs that you have taken. This is called Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis or abbreviated as MDR-TB.
MDR-TB is a serious problem. This means that bacteria are increasingly difficult to kill and your chances of getting better are decreasing. Plus, you need to take stronger antibiotics that are risky to give you unpleasant side effects.
In Indonesia, MDR-TB is often found. Some causes of failure of tuberculosis treatment to be able to develop into MDR-TB are due to lack of information, lack of money for treatment or transportation to health centers or hospitals, side effects, lack of commitment to taking long-term drugs, to malabsorption.
Some patients suffer even worse because they feel embarrassed when they have to go for treatment for tuberculosis. Luckily, in Indonesia the TB-Pulmonary drug is free and the supervisors take medication so that it can increase the success rate of treatment.
Even though it has been completely cured, can pulmonary TB cause scars on the lungs?
As mentioned above, TB can heal if the TB germs do not die and are detected again in the body. But this does not mean the lungs will return to their original state when they have not been infected. Because, tuberculosis infection can result in changes in lung function in the short and long term. When complications occur are permanent, the symptoms of this complication will be felt even until after treatment for tuberculosis is complete. But this does not mean that the infection is still ongoing.
One of the complications that you may experience is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) where you will often feel tight even though the tuberculosis germ has not been detected. Another thing you might find is that when you do a chest x-ray, you can still see white patches that are settled.
This also does not mean that the infection is still ongoing, but merely shows the scarring in your lungs like a scar that forms on the skin.For those of you who are required to take a lung health test for the sake of continuing education or applying for a job, immediately consult a doctor.
