Intestinal Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis of the intestine is a rare but serious disease. A pathogen — usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis — does not settle in the lungs, where one would expect it, but in the digestive system. In the small intestine, the large intestine, sometimes in the peritoneum. The symptoms creep up: persistent abdominal pain, weight loss, fever in the evening hours, diarrhea or paradoxical constipation, a weakness that no amount of sleep can cure. The diagnosis often comes late, because the complaints look for a long time like an irritable bowel, a chronic inflammation, or a food intolerance.

Medicine describes the process precisely: a pathogen penetrates the intestinal wall, the immune system builds granulomas, hardenings, ulcers, and scarring form in the tissue. The intestine, which normally absorbs, processes, and passes on, begins to encapsulate, to harden, to withdraw.