SYMPTOMS OF TB

28.06.2016

Tuberculosis can progress in the human body without any external signs for a long time. During this period Mycobacterium tuberculosis which got into the lungs begin to multiply in the lungs or other organs, while the immune system tries to stop or slow down this invasion. When the degree of organ damage becomes quite significant, the person begins to feel sickish with the following symptoms:

coughing that doesn't subside throughout the duration of 2 to 3 weeks
excessive sweating at night;
weakness;
unexplained body weight loss;
increase in body temperature to 37 degrees and higher for no apparent reason, lasting more than a week.

In some cases blood spitting, chest pain, or laboured breathing may also be present.

If you have detected at least a few of these symptoms you should visit your GP and to do a TB screening.

If preventive X-ray examination shows positive tuberculosis in your body during and you don’t have any signs of the disease, it does not mean you are not sick. You are lucky that the disease was detected at an early stage, when the lung affection is small and does not affect overall health. If it was not for preventive examination which revealed tuberculosis at a pre-semeiotic stage, the disease would continue to evolve affecting larger areas of the lungs, which would soon manifest in cough or other pleuropulmonary symptoms.