Tuberculosis (TB) is
an infectious disease mainly caused by Mycobacterium
Tuberculosis that usually attacks the lungs, but can attack almost
any part of the body (in brain it makes Tubeculomas, that is a major cause of Epilepsy).
It is spread from person to person through the air.
Someone who is infected with TB has the TB germs, or bacteria, in their
body. The bodys defenses are protecting them from the germs and they remain
a-symptomatic for a long time till the bodys defense (vital forces) remains strong. Such persons will not infect the other
persons.
Clinical Picture
A person with TB infection
will have no symptoms. A person with TB disease may
have any, all or none of the following symptoms: cough
off and on for a long period,
feeling tired all the time, weight loss, loss of
appetite, fever (mild to moderate),
coughing up blood, night sweats and chest pain for
nearly one month. These symptoms
can also occur with other types of lung disease so it
is important to investigate the
case properly.
There are three group of symptoms usually finds in TB cases.
1) Those
due to the systemic effect of the disease which include lassitude and
malaise, impairment of appetite, loss
of weight, anaemia, sweating especially during
sleep, pyrexia and tachycardia. Absence
of these symptoms does not necessarily
mean that the disease is inactive. It
is known as a dormant stage of the disease.
2) Those
caused by the local effects of tubercular lesions. Depending on the
site of lesion symptoms varies from
patient to patient: cough is more when there is
an involvement of the air passage.
3) Those
caused by the nature of the disease: inflammatory lesions produce
acute conditions means more febrile
symptoms.
WHAT IS THE CONVENTIONAL TREATMENT FOR TB?
Treatment for TB depends on whether a person has TB disease or
only TB infection.
A person who has become infected with TB, but does not have TB
disease, may be
given preventive therapy. Preventive therapy aims to kill germs
that are not doing any
damage right now, but could break out later.
If a doctor decides a person should have preventive therapy, the usual
prescription
is a daily dose of isoniazid (also called "INH"), an
inexpensive TB medicine. The person
takes INH for six months (up to a year for some patients), with
periodic checkups to
make sure the medicine is being taken as prescribed.
What if the person has TB disease? Then treatment is needed. The
patient usually gets a combination of several drugs (most frequently INH plus
two to three others), usually for six to nine months. The patient
will probably begin to
feel better only a few weeks after starting to take the drugs.
It is very important, however, that the patient continue to take the
medicine
correctly for the full length of treatment. If the medicine is
taken incorrectly or stopped
the patient may become sick again and will be able to infect
others with TB.
If the medicine is taken incorrectly and the patient becomes sick with
TB a second
time, the TB may be harder to treat because it has become drug
resistant. Multi-drug
resistant (MDR) TB is very dangerous, so patients should be sure
that they take all of
their medicine correctly. It is resistant to available ATT only
not to homeopathy.
Though it is very difficult to
treat a case of MDR TB through homoeopathy, yet an
experienced homeopath can make MDR
TB patient free from the disease.
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