The truth is, you might have tuberculosis (TB) without knowing it! Going by our preconceived idea of a breathless, skinny, tired old fellow suffering from severe cough, you might feel nothing, see nothing and you rush to the lab for a TB skin test that proves negative yet have tuberculosis! Why? This is the stage of exposure, the very first of the three stages of tuberculosis-- this is the exposure stage.
You could have contracted TB bacteria through exposure to droplets from the cough or sneeze of a previously exposed person. It even gets trickier because that infected person might show no signs of tuberculosis and yet infect others. During this stage, aside a negative skin test, even a chest X-ray turns out normal.
The next phase of tuberculosis is the stage of latent/"quiet" infection. As with the exposure stage, folks in the latent stage of tuberculosis infection shows no signs or symptoms of tuberculosis. Their organs are intact and a chest x-ray typically normal or show evidence of slight lung infection at the most. The major difference between the latent and the exposure stage is a positive TB skin test.
The latent stage is ample evidence of a strong immune system that succeeds in "containing" the TB infection. It might interest you to know that many TB-infected folk remain in this latent phase for a lifetime. But, a few folks might deteriorate and progress into the third and final stage called tuberculosis disease stage. Those whose disease progress to the active phase/stage may have positive or negative skin TB test but the x-ray, biopsy and other tests reveal active tuberculosis.
What causes tuberculosis and how do I know I have it?
Tuberculosis is caused by TB bacteria. To know for sure that you have TB requires a medical diagnosis. As stated, skin tests and x-rays may remain normal initially and most folks will have an inactive disease throughout life but some will come down with active tuberculosis disease.
Symptoms of tuberculosis include:
*Chronic cough with blood-stained sputum
*Chronic cough with chest pain
*Chest pain while breathing
*Fever, chills and night sweat
* Loss of appetite, fatigue, weight loss and wasting
What predisposes you to tuberculosis?
Children and the aged are particularly vulnerable to active tuberculosis disease but there are other predispositions.
Many factors make you vulnerable to tuberculosis. They include living with or being a close contact with someone with active tuberculosis disease. Children with a positive TB test, especially those less than 5 years old are more vulnerable due to weaker immune systems. Persons who abuse substances especially by injection through the veins are also more predisposed to tuberculosis.
Certain medical conditions also predispose you to tuberculosis including diabetes, severe kidney disease and organ transplant, steroid therapy and cancers of the head and neck. Further, living in a correctional facility and homelessness,, HIV infection predispose you to tuberculosis. Working in a hospital or other health institution where tuberculosis disease patients are treated or in a nursing home with tuberculosis disease sufferers are known predisposing factors for tuberculosis.
In summary, you may not know who’s contracted tuberculosis simply by looking at them. They could still look as healthy as can be but have latent TB. The good thing is that in this early stages you cannot transmit the TB bug but you still need some form of treatment to prevent it degenerating into full-blown Tuberculosis disease.
