Does tuberculosis cause coughing?

Written by Wang Xiang Yu
Pulmonology
Updated on September 18, 2024
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Do tuberculosis patients cough? Most tuberculosis patients can experience coughing, and the duration of the cough is generally quite long, often exceeding two to three weeks and in some cases even reaching over six months to a year. However, there is also a small number of patients who might not cough due to the different types of tuberculosis they have. Additionally, not all cases of coughing indicate tuberculosis. A tuberculosis patient might cough, but they might also not cough, and while a person who coughs could possibly have tuberculosis, not all coughs are due to tuberculosis. There is no definitive equivalence between tuberculosis and coughing. I hope this explanation helps you understand the relationship between tuberculosis and coughing. Thank you.

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Written by Wang Xiang Yu
Pulmonology
46sec home-news-image

Can tuberculosis relapse?

Tuberculosis can relapse, and the answer is definitely yes. In clinical practice, we see many patients who have had tuberculosis and, years later, experience a recurrence of the disease, even multiple recurrences. However, the probability of this is generally not high. As long as everyone follows the doctor's instructions for standard anti-tuberculosis treatment and completes the full course of treatment, most patients can be cured. However, there are a few people whose treatment process is not standard, or who stop taking their medication on their own, and these actions can increase the risk of tuberculosis recurrence.

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Written by Wang Xiang Yu
Pulmonology
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How is tuberculosis treated?

The primary treatment for tuberculosis is still chemotherapy, also simply called chemo, but the chemotherapy for tuberculosis is completely different from the anti-tumor chemotherapy we talk about in cancer, and the medications are also completely different. There are about more than ten anti-tuberculosis drugs, which can be divided into first-line and second-line drugs, and currently, there are third-line drugs under research. Chemotherapy for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis should be started early and administered in combination. The types of combined medication for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis generally involve three or more drugs. Some patients may exhibit drug resistance or intolerance to some drugs' side effects, and thus, second-line drugs may be used. Additionally, some patients, due to special conditions, may require four or five types of anti-tuberculosis drugs. It is crucial to strictly follow medical advice regarding how to medicate and treat. Furthermore, patients with pulmonary tuberculosis must ensure complete medication adherence, as the treatment duration for tuberculosis is quite long, typically requiring at least six months, and some patients may need one or even two years. Regular medication intake is very important because some patients might experience symptoms like coughing up blood or others, such as those with pleurisy, who might develop pleural effusion. Therefore, treatments targeted at other symptoms are necessary. Patients who cough up blood might need hemostatic drugs, while those with severe hemoptysis may even require interventional surgery. Some with tuberculous pleurisy might need to have pleural effusion drained. Additionally, some patients with pulmonary tuberculosis might experience adverse reactions to medications, such as liver or kidney failure, visual impairment, or numbness in the hands, which would require adjustments to their medication or changes based on their complications. Treatment should also be targeted toward these adverse reactions.

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Written by Wang Chun Mei
Pulmonology
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Does tuberculosis cause headaches in its initial stage?

Tuberculosis is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the lungs, generally transmitted through respiratory droplets or direct contact. When infected with tuberculosis, symptoms that often appear include low-grade fever in the afternoons, coughing, expectoration, hemoptysis, chest pain, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. Some may experience weight loss, fatigue, and night sweats. Therefore, when patients with pulmonary tuberculosis exhibit an afternoon low-grade fever, it often leads to the occurrence of headaches. Therefore, it is very common for patients in the early stages of pulmonary tuberculosis to exhibit various symptoms, primarily due to the rise in body temperature.

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Written by Wang Xiang Yu
Pulmonology
1min 38sec home-news-image

Does tuberculosis cause a runny nose?

Do patients with tuberculosis have a runny nose? First, we need to understand what tuberculosis is. The pathogen of tuberculosis is Mycobacterium tuberculosis, commonly referred to as TB bacillus. Its primary site of infection is the lungs, but now we also classify and manage tracheobronchial and tuberculous pleurisy under pulmonary tuberculosis. However, these sites do not include the nasal part. Generally, patients with pulmonary tuberculosis show symptoms of the respiratory system and systemic symptoms. The most common respiratory symptoms include coughing and phlegm production for more than two weeks. Some patients may also experience hemoptysis, with varying amounts from mild to severe. A few patients may also experience chest pain. Additionally, patients with caseous pneumonia or significant pleural effusion may experience difficulty in breathing. Systemic symptoms of tuberculosis include fever, mainly characterized by afternoon tidal fever, with some patients exhibiting high fevers, and other general symptoms such as loss of appetite, weight loss, night sweats, and fatigue. However, the majority of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis do not exhibit nasal symptoms, meaning a runny nose is generally not a manifestation of tuberculosis. It could be possible that a tuberculosis patient might also have other infections or causative diseases, such as allergic rhinitis.

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Written by Han Jian Hua
Infectious Disease
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Does tuberculosis infect people?

Tuberculosis is a contagious disease, and hearing the term "tuberculosis" inevitably makes people nervous. However, not all tuberculosis patients are contagious. Research shows that among tuberculosis patients, only those who have tuberculosis bacteria found in sputum smear tests are contagious. With a source of infection, the tuberculosis bacteria must be transmitted to others through certain routes. Airborne transmission is the main route of transmission for tuberculosis bacteria. When a tuberculosis patient coughs, sneezes, or speaks loudly, they release a large number of droplet nuclei containing tuberculosis bacteria into the air, which can be inhaled by healthy individuals and cause infection. The degree of tuberculosis bacteria infection mainly depends on factors such as the amount of bacteria the patient expels, the severity of coughing symptoms, and the extent of contact. Therefore, when there is a tuberculosis patient nearby, we first need to understand whether they are in the active phase of the disease, that is, expelling bacteria, and whether they are undergoing anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy. If the patient has a negative sputum test or has undergone chemotherapy for a positive sputum test, such patients have very low contagiousness, so there is no need to worry too much about being infected.