14 Common Symptoms of Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is also commonly called TB. It is much more common in some regions, with countries like the United States of America taking strong measures to help control and fight it. As a result, TB is less common in those areas than in less developed parts of the world, but can still remain a risk factor for nearly everyone, especially with the advent of commercial air travel that helps diseases spread more rapidly. 

TB has the potential to be a serious, life-threatening infection. As such, it is important to get diagnosed as early as possible and obtain treatment. It is a difficult infection to cure, so it’s common that a strong cocktail of multiple different drugs may be necessary for months on end to finally cure it. No specific outcome is guaranteed, and TB can even return again to a patient who thought it had been cured ages ago.

Here are 8 common symptoms:

1. Fever

Tuberculosis is an infection, so it’s normal to expect your body to identify that there is an intruder and take steps to try to get rid of it. Fever is one of the most powerful responses your body has to infection, as many microbes can’t handle the change in temperature and turning up the heat a bit is a good way to both slow their reproduction and help stun them, buying your immune system valuable time to figure out ways to defeat them.

A fever is one of the first signs that something is wrong, and tuberculosis is no different. The change in temperature can vary widely depending on how severe your infection is, how long it has been since you came down with it, and your own personal biochemistry. Any increase in average temperature is a sign that you might have an infection and future diagnosis would be warranted.