My Personal Experience with a TB Patient
– Meghana Machineni
As we know that tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious disease, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which makes the diseased person or the patient very weak. The patient usually has severe cough, fever, malaise, weakness.
As it is a granulomatous disease it takes more time for cure than any other disease and involves monitoring of the patient’s condition periodically. Most cases of TB Disease are drug-resistant, so they are treated with “MULTI-DRUG” Therapy. As this therapy is used, most patients may undergo depression as they get the feeling that they are taking more medicines than required for their age. Along with this, due to the high dosage of these drugs, they become weak and lose their immunity and get other diseases.
When I was in my 2nd year, I saw a patient in our TB WARD who was 35 years old.
He used to generally go for his periodic checkups to the PHC in his village. He used the given dosage of drugs continuously for 3 months and got rid of the symptoms. Later the symptoms reoccured after 2 months and he started using the same doses again without the supervision of the doctor. He did the same thing for approximately 2 years and the symptoms aggravated. The doctor in the PHC sent him to our hospital. The doctors here performed the required tests and diagnosed him with Pulmonary TB along with spread to the Intestines. His wife who accompanied him was shocked and requested the doctor to start with the therapy immediately. It was such a heart-shattering experience for me because the patient died within 10 days after his admission to our hospital due to related complications.
Even with the therapy given by the doctors, the patient should take the responsibility to monitor his condition continuously.
We can take some safety measures as listed below in our day-to-day life to reduce the risk of infection:
- Should maintain good ventilation so that the bacteria does not remain suspended in the same place.
- Should maintain good hygiene
- Covering of mouth with a tissue or hand kerchief while coughing so that the droplet matter can not be inhaled by other person or us.
