An Aunt that lives with Thandi’s family has a cough that hasn’t gone away in a long time and she’s also lost lots of weight.
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The doctor says the aunt has TB!
They explain that the whole family will have to take some medicine
to try to prevent getting TB but there are some side effects,
it’s called “TB Preventative Treatment”.
The doctor explains that even though Thandi seems heathy, it is essential that she take the TB Preventative Treatment.
Thandi starts to feel bad, she feels nauseous and doesn’t want to eat.
Her parents tell her she has no symptoms of TB. She thinks the medicine makes her feel bad.
Thandi’s Aunt finished her course of medicine and the family also finished their TB Preventative Treatment.
The doctor said the Aunt no longer has TB and Thandi and her family no longer needs the preventative treatment and can stop taking it!
Thandi develops a cough and the doctor says they need to do something called a sputum test.
She coughs and spits her sputum into a tube, which will be tested in a machine called a GeneXpert, which only takes a few hours.
A few hours later the doctor has the results of her test.
The doctor says unfortunately she has active TB!
Mike O’ is now in her lungs, he’s made up of bacteria called Mycobacterium Tuberculosis and causes TB.
The preventative treatment was to stop him getting into Thandi.
Because Mike O’ is now in Thandi, the doctor says she will have to take even more medicine each day, and the side effects will be worse!
The doctor says Thandi needs to come into the clinic each day so someone at the clinic can watch her take her medicine, they called it “Directly Observed Therapy”.
Due to the medicine Thandi stops feeling any of her TB symptoms, but her side effects have never been worse!
She goes to the doctor, who does a few safety tests. The doctor checks if the doses are ok.
They change one of the medicines so some of the side effects should be better.
Meanwhile, Mike O’ goes into hiding, but is still there…
Thandi’s TB progresses quickly, she loses lots of weight and feels tired.
The side effects get better, Thandi wonders if she should
keep taking her medicine…
Because Thandi didn’t take her medicine and the TB progressed rapidly,
Mike’O has spread and is now not just in Thandi’s lungs, but in several places!
When visiting the clinic, the doctor tells Thandi that the TB has changed!
It seems it’s now multidrug-resistant, so she needs different, stronger medicine, that will have worse side effects…
In addition to losing lots of weight, having a cough, and night-sweats,
Thandi notices there’s blood every time she goes to the toilet,
and her back hurts a lot.
Thandi has been going to the clinic each day for her Directly Observed
Therapy, her side effects have been getting quite bad, she still wonders
if she should keep taking the medicine each day…
After many months of going to the clinic each day, the doctor finally tells Thandi that the TB is cured!
The infection is gone, but there is some underlying damage that it left – Thandi always feels breathless and the
doctor thinks that wont ever go away, they called it a chronic symptom that she will now have
the rest of her life.
After some months, the doctor at the clinic tells Thandi that she’s all better! Thandi no longer needs to take any medicine, no longer has stomach ache, and best of all, no longer has TB!
Thandi has been taking her new medicine regime for a short while, but
she can already feel the side effects are worse – her stomach still aches, but her sweat
now comes out orange, and her hands and feet feel numb and tingly too.
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