A cough that will not quit, weight slipping off without trying, night sweats and a tiredness that sleep does not fix are easy to explain away. Many people delay testing because they fear what others will say, and that delay costs the most valuable thing of all: time.
TB is caused by bacteria that usually affect the lungs and can spread through the air when someone with infectious TB coughs, sneezes or spits, though it can also affect other organs. According to the World Health Organization, it is preventable and curable, and early complete treatment is what turns it from dangerous to curable.
Symptoms can be mild at first and include a cough lasting weeks, fever, night sweats, weight loss, tiredness, chest pain or coughing up blood. Because these can occur in other illnesses too, persistent symptoms deserve testing rather than a wait-and-see approach.
Not everyone infected with TB bacteria becomes ill, but certain conditions raise the risk after infection, and the WHO handbook on TB and diabetes lists diabetes, undernutrition, HIV, tobacco and harmful alcohol use among them. The link with diabetes matters greatly in India, where both are common.
Diagnosis may involve a sputum test, chest imaging and other tests, and treatment uses a combination of specific antibiotics over a defined period. Stopping early is dangerous and can lead to drug-resistant TB, so if side effects, cost, travel or work make treatment difficult, tell your TB team, because public-health services often exist to help.
Coughing up a large amount of blood, severe breathing difficulty, confusion or serious weakness need urgent care. Family support, reminders, help getting to appointments and freedom from blame all make the long course of treatment easier.