Often forget to take TB medicine? heart

Tuberculosis (TB) bacteria have a “resistant” nature that requires long-term antibiotic treatment. In addition to duration, TB treatment usually consists of a large amount of medication that needs to be taken. As a result, patients can be negligent or forget to take medication as scheduled. If you just forget a day to take TB medicine, maybe the impact will not be too big. However, if you keep forgetting to take TB medication, the consequences will not only be detrimental to your own health, but also to those around you.

Why do you often miss or forget to take TB medicine?

According to dr. Anis Karuniawati who serves as Secretary of the Committee for the Control of Antimicrobial Resistance, the bacteria that causes tuberculosis,Myobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), is a type of acid-resistant bacteria that is classified as difficult to kill.

MTB has different properties from most disease-causing bacteria. In general, it takes tuberculosis bacteria about 24 hours to multiply in half.

Furthermore, Anis, who was met at a media discussion on November 15 2018, explained that in the body, the TB bacteria can sleep for a long time and do not reproduce. In fact, most antibiotics actually work when the bacteria are active.

The development of bacteria that is relatively fast and the way this antibiotic works is one of the reasons that TB treatment must be given long-term. The rules for taking TB medicine also require high discipline from the patient.

Usually, people who experience TB disease are required to take a combination of several anti-TB drugs (OAT) for 6-12 months. The type of antituberculosis drugs prescribed will be adjusted to the severity of the disease and the condition of each patient.

Another challenge with long-term treatment is the risk of side effects from TB drugs. It is not uncommon for sufferers' health conditions to deteriorate because the side effects of drugs make them lose their appetite or experience complications, such as liver damage.

Various consequences of forgetting to take TB medication irregularly

The difficulty of taking TB medication rules can indeed make TB sufferers neglect to undergo treatment. However, the consequences of constantly forgetting to take TB medication can also be fatal, leading to treatment failure and widespread TB transmission.

The following are some of the consequences that arise if you do not regularly take TB medication according to schedule:

1. The effect of drug or antibiotic resistance / resistance

If a person with tuberculosis is inconsistent on therapy and forgets to take medication for more than a day, you are at high risk of developing antibiotic resistance. This condition is known as drug-resistant TB (MDR).

Journal articles Antibiotics explained that antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria are resistant or resistant to antibiotics that are consumed. Simply put, drugs no longer work against or stop bacterial infections.

Usually patients will experience resistance to first-line TB drugs, such as isoniazid and rifampin. This immunity makes bacteria more free to multiply in the body and damage healthy tissues.

This needs to be watched out for because in the first two months of treatment, patients will generally feel that their TB condition is gradually improving. This condition can cause sufferers to underestimate the rules of TB treatment because they feel quite fit and strong enough to do activities without having to take medication.

2. Worsening of symptoms

Generally, first-line drugs are more effective at stopping bacterial infections. However, because they are already resistant or resistant, the drugs must be changed to the second line which takes longer to heal.

When the TB medicines are no longer effective in killing bacteria, the TB symptoms you experience can get worse. If previously your condition has improved and you no longer experience symptoms, it is likely that TB symptoms will return in a more severe form, such as frequent experiencing severe shortness of breath and coughing up blood.

3. Transmission of TB is more widespread

Due to undisciplined and often forgetting to take medication regularly, this condition increases the risk of transmitting TB disease to other healthy people. The danger is that other people are not only infected with the usual TB bacteria. Drug-resistant bacteria can also move and infect other people's bodies. As a result, they also experience MDR TB conditions even though they may never have experienced TB before.

As an illustration, the last successful TB treatment rate in Indonesia in 2018 only reached 85 percent. According to the data from the Indonesian Ministry of Health, the trend of the success of TB treatment continues to show a decline from 2008, which reached 90 percent. The main cause is OAT resistance caused by inconsistency and interruption of treatment or negligence such as often forgetting to take TB medication on time.

The most worrying impact of this condition is that the number of sufferers cannot be reduced drastically so that the rate of disease transmission is getting higher. The report of the world health agency, WHO, in 2019, shows that there are 845 thousand cases of tuberculosis in Indonesia. The number of cases is ranked third in the world after India and China. Meanwhile, the population who experienced drug-resistant TB in 2018 was 24,000.

What if you forget to take medicine in a day?

If you forget to take medication in a day, usually the TB medicine can still be consumed as usual the next day. However, don't be late for taking the drug again the next day.

Meanwhile, if you forget to take TB medication for up to two days in a row or more, try contacting your doctor before your next scheduled medication. The doctor will provide instructions for further treatment.

Patients who undergo direct treatment at a rehabilitation center will usually have no trouble following the treatment rules because there are nurses who remind them to take medication on time.

Therefore, if you are doing outpatient treatment, consult your doctor if you have trouble remembering a schedule for taking your medication. The doctor will usually provide advice and treatment rules that can be tailored to your daily activities.

Tips not to be late taking TB medication

If you find it difficult to remember or discipline yourself to follow the treatment schedule, you can do the following things so you don't forget to take TB medication:

• Take the medicine at the same time or hour every day.
• Use reminders such as alarms that are set at the time you take your medicine.
• Mark a calendar every day to record how long you have been taking TB medicine.
• Ask for help from people around you to remind or supervise taking personal medication, especially friends or family who live in the same house.