Tuberculosis of the lungs in adults: symptoms and treatment

Tuberculosis is one of the most common diseases of mankind. The first mention of the disease can be found even in the treatises of Hippocrates. He believed that the disease is hereditary, but already Avicenna was able to prove that the disease is transmitted from person to person. Previously, tuberculosis was called consumption, from the word to languish. Indeed, until the 20th century, tuberculosis was considered an incurable disease. Modern medicine allows you to identify and cure tuberculosis at an early stage of development.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by mycobacterium. It is called the Koch wand in honor of the German scientist Robert Koch, who discovered it in the 19th century. According to official figures, about 9 million people are infected with tuberculosis annually in the world. To defeat the disease, you need to know about its manifestations, the causes and methods of treatment.

Tuberculosis symptoms

The incubation period of the disease can be from one to three months. The danger is that in the early stages of the development of the disease, the symptoms are similar to a simple respiratory infection. As soon as the stick enters the body, it begins to spread with blood to all organs, the first manifestations of infection appear.

1. With tuberculosis, a person feels weak, as at the beginning of acute respiratory viral infections. Efficiency decreases, apathy appears, you constantly want to sleep, the patient quickly gets tired. Signs of intoxication do not go away for quite some time.
2. Tuberculosis is manifested by a strong cough that does not go away for many months. At first, the cough may be dry, after a while sputum begins to stand out. In the late stages of the disease, blood clots are expectorated from the lungs along with sputum. Cough worse in lying position. Also, the disease is accompanied by shortness of breath with a feeling of lack of air, wet or dry rales.
3. The appearance of the patient with tuberculosis is also changing. It becomes unnaturally pale, losing weight for no reason, facial features become angular, and an unhealthy glow appears in the eyes. With a developed or chronic form of tuberculosis, the cheeks fail, an unnatural blush may appear. As a rule, doctors can immediately suspect tuberculosis in a patient with characteristic changes in appearance.
4. Tuberculosis is accompanied by fever. In the early stages of the development of the disease, low-grade fever rarely exceeds 37.5 degrees. However, the patient should be guarded precisely by the duration of the symptom, when the temperature does not return to normal for weeks or even months. This indicates a latent inflammatory process in the body. Further, as the disease develops, the temperature rises above the indicated level and reaches 41 degrees, especially in the evening. This indicates a complete infection of the body. Active sweating does not contribute to the normalization of temperature.
5. The development of tuberculosis is accompanied by pain in the chest, under the shoulder blades, under the ribs. At the initial stage, there is only a slight discomfort. The pain intensifies as the body becomes infected, each time it becomes more penetrating and acute. Especially pain is felt when inhaling.
6. Often, tuberculosis is accompanied by an increase in lymph nodes.

To a greater extent, tuberculosis affects the lungs - in almost 90% of cases. However, mycobacteria can be dangerous for other organs. The patient can be diagnosed with tuberculosis of the genitourinary system, bones, central nervous system, digestive organs. Symptoms of the disease in this case are caused by a malfunction of the affected organs.

Causes of tuberculosis

As noted, tuberculosis can be infected from a sick person by airborne droplets.

1. Most often, the infection comes from a sick person - when he talks, sneezes, coughs or sings in the immediate vicinity. When talking, saliva can reach a healthy person at a distance of 1 meter, with coughing and sneezing, up to three meters.
2. Tuberculosis can be contracted by eating contaminated foods if the infected person has previously touched or packed them. Most often it is dairy products and fresh meat. This can be avoided if the products are subjected to prolonged heat treatment.
3. Often, infection occurs through the household, when people live on the same territory and are forced to use common hygiene items - towels, dishes, etc.
4. Another method of infection is intrauterine. If the expectant mother is infected with tuberculosis, most likely, the baby will also suffer from this disease.
5. In some cases, the body can resist infection, even if the wand has entered the bloodstream. With a sufficiently high immunity, the body's defenses do not allow the spread of infection. The risk of infection increases with hypothermia, poor nutrition, drug use, stress, as well as with concomitant infectious diseases.

Most often, people infected with tuberculosis are forced to live in small residential premises, when isolation is simply impossible. A few decades ago, tuberculosis was considered a disease in prisons. Indeed, in such institutions tuberculosis developed especially rapidly, they infected everyone around it, since the cells were densely populated.

Form and diagnosis of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis can take two forms - open and closed. An open form of tuberculosis is considered very dangerous, because in this case the patient is contagious to others. Mycobacterium with an open form of the disease is contained in any physiological secretions - urine, feces, blood, saliva, sputum, etc. The closed form of the disease is considered not dangerous to others, since the stick is not secreted. However, tuberculosis at any time from the closed form can go into the open.

Diagnosing tuberculosis with high accuracy is quite difficult. The simplest is to do a Mantoux test. Under the patient’s skin, a composition containing treated tubercle bacilli - tuberculin is administered. If the body has never previously encountered such pathogens, it will not give a sufficient reaction, since it does not recognize the enemy. If a person is sick with tuberculosis, the body recognizes the pathogen and begins to actively fight, at the injection site a reaction occurs - swelling, redness. The size of the reaction to the Mantoux test can determine the infection of the patient. However, this method is not 100% informative, therefore, for the diagnosis of the disease, smear examination, sputum culture, lung x-ray are also used. One of the modern methods for detecting tuberculosis is a polymer chain reaction; sputum is taken for analysis. The result of this analysis is very accurate, reaches 100%.

Tuberculosis treatment

The treatment of tuberculosis is a very long, systemic process. To get rid of the disease completely, you need to make a lot of effort and patience. It is almost impossible to recover at home on your own, since Koch's wand gets used to many drugs and loses sensitivity over time.

1. Even if tuberculosis is not resistant to the drugs used, treatment at best takes 6-8 months. The duration of treatment can last 2-3 years. The disease often worsens in spring and autumn. When tuberculosis is detected, the patient is placed in a hospital where he is located for about two months until he becomes safe for others. Further treatment continues on an outpatient basis.
2. A TB doctor is involved in tuberculosis.
3. Tuberculosis treatment is carried out according to the scheme, using and alternating at least four to five chemotherapeutic drugs. In no case should you take a break in treatment, otherwise the results will be lost, and the disease will begin to progress again.
4. Before prescribing adequate treatment, sputum culture is done in order to reveal the resistance of the pathogen to certain drugs. This is a prerequisite for the treatment to be effective. In some cases, resistance can be either innate or acquired.
5. Most often, such drugs as Streptomycin, Isoniazid, Ethambutol, Rifapicin, Pyrazinamide are used in the treatment of tuberculosis. The doctor prescribes and selects a treatment regimen in each case individually.
6. If the patient’s condition does not improve after long-term treatment, second-line drugs are prescribed - Ethionamide, Cycloserin, Ofloxacin, Pask, Capriomycin. These drugs are very expensive, unfortunately, not everyone can afford such a treatment.
7. The route of administration of drugs may be different. Most often, injections and inhalations are used, so that the medicine gets directly to the site of inflammation - to the lungs.
8. In combination with drug treatment, a preventive stay in recreation areas is mandatory. Sanatoriums for tuberculosis patients are usually located in forests and mountains with conifers. Clean air with a high resin content promotes a speedy recovery.
9. According to the law, a patient with tuberculosis is treated in a hospital or sanatorium forcibly so that he does not infect healthy people.
10. Equally important in the fight against tuberculosis is nutrition. The patient's diet should have nutritious and healthy foods to help the patient regain strength and gain lost weight. Beverages that stimulate appetite are obligatory for drinking - a rosehip broth, yogurt, fermented baked milk. Vitamins are also prescribed for the patient, which will help strengthen immunity and remove the body from a state of exhaustion.
11. Alcohol and smoking during the treatment period, of course, are prohibited.
12. In addition, there is a latent form of tuberculosis, when the rod enters the body, and the immune system suppresses it. In this case, the disease does not develop, but the person is considered to be a carrier of tuberculosis, without even suspecting it.

Tuberculosis is a very unpleasant and protracted disease. Many doctors believe that most often they suffer from tuberculosis in conditions of poverty and unsanitary conditions. If your body is infected with a Koch wand, do not despair, this is not a sentence at all. With the proper approach and proper treatment, tuberculosis can be cured. At the same time, it is important to observe basic preventive measures so as not to infect other people.

Tuberculosis prevention

These rules must be observed by both healthy and infected people.

1. As soon as you suspect tuberculosis at home or at one of your relatives, you should contact the TB dispensary at the place of registration as soon as possible to identify the diagnosis and isolate the patient.
2. Tuberculosis in prisons develops with a geometric progression. This is due to the confined space, improper treatment, low immunity of patients.
3. You can become infected with tuberculosis through saliva, sputum, blood, potassium and urine of a sick person. Koch's wand is very tenacious - it can remain viable for up to 10 days, and in dark and damp places for up to several months.
4. It is very important to strengthen the immune system, because the body itself is able to suppress infection. To do this, you need to eat properly and balanced, consume enough vitamins with food or capsules. An active lifestyle and observance of basic hygiene rules will help to strengthen health.
5. To treat the room after a patient with tuberculosis, thoroughly rinse all solid objects with concentrated chlorine solution.All textile items need not only to be washed, but boiled and ironed.
6. In civilized countries, a preventive medical examination is carried out twice a year, the list of which includes fluorography. The picture allows you to identify the disease at an early stage of development, which makes its treatment significantly more effective.
7. Tuberculosis prevention is smoking cessation in the first place. When the lungs are affected by the pathogen of Koch's bacillus, exposure to nicotine enhances tissue destruction, the disease progresses at a much greater rate.

But the most effective protection against tuberculosis is BCG vaccination. Normally, they put her back in the hospital in the first 3-5 days after the birth of the baby. Vaccination does not protect the baby completely, but by 70% reduces the risk of infection and dangerous complications.

Tuberculosis is a serious disease that is still considered deadly. In the modern world, millions of people become infected every year, thousands of them die. Most often, death from tuberculosis occurs in cases of low social status of patients, when the patient cannot be provided with adequate treatment or the disease starts so that when they get to the doctor, specialists can no longer do anything. If in time to recognize the disease, conduct competent treatment and regularly observed by a doctor, tuberculosis can be defeated. Watch your body - this is the main condition for maintaining health!

Video: treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in adults