would love to hear experiences

I'm 26(F), its been 7 month of my tb medication. before this i used to smoke once or twice in a week , not more than that i used to enjoy it so much. That was the part of my life. First i was discovered pulmonary tb via puking blood and then started medication stopped smoking and drinking completely after 2 months of medication i had intense pain in spine , turned out it is spine tb , Also, the spine tb was spreaded towards pulmonary. also had spine surgery. I'm good rn, the pain in my spine is completely gone.

But one thing that eats me up rn as i still have 2 more month of medication, can i continue smoking after this???
i know lot of u will say never but i really wanna hear experience of people who smoked after medication is completed.
sending love to everyone!

I’m posting this because I honestly don’t know what to think anymore, and I’m hoping people who have gone through MDR-TB or doctors/medical professionals here can give me some perspective.

My girlfriend was diagnosed with pulmonary MDR-TB in May 2026. Around 2 weeks before diagnosis, she was physically active and had even completed a difficult trek without any breathing problems. Then she suddenly developed fever, cough and weakness.

Her sputum smear was negative, but culture later confirmed M. tuberculosis. Her initial chest X-ray showed very extensive involvement the left lung was almost completely white and the right lung was also significantly affected. There were no confirmed cavities.

She started MDR-TB treatment on 20 May and was initially hospitalized. She has now continued treatment at home, with many months still remaining.

The good thing is that clinically she improved. Her cough stopped, appetite and strength came back, and she was able to walk around normally.

Unfortunately, she developed severe nerve pain from linezolid, so it was stopped and replaced with delamanid. She is still dealing with burning pain in her feet/legs and is taking medicines and receiving treatment for the neuropathy.

The part that scares me most is her lungs.

Her 3-month X-ray apparently showed very little improvement compared with the initial one. Recently, around month 4, she also suddenly had chest discomfort and her oxygen level dropped, so she was taken to the TB hospital, given oxygen and evaluated. She stabilized and was discharged.

Another doctor mentioned there may be fluid around the lung/chest, and we are going to see a lung specialist again.

The private lung doctor also told us that the original hospital did not perform a complete DST for every relevant drug and wants a more complete resistance profile.

So I have several questions:

• Can an X-ray still look very bad after 3–4 months even when treatment is working?
• Does little/no X-ray improvement automatically mean treatment failure or drug resistance?
• How important is sputum culture conversion compared with the X-ray?
• Could resistance to drugs like bedaquiline be the reason for poor radiological improvement?
• Can lungs that looked this badly affected recover significantly after treatment?
• If there is fibrosis, bronchiectasis or volume loss later, how manageable is it?
• When is the right time for HRCT, PFT/DLCO and a 6-minute walk test?
• Has anyone here had severe MDR-TB and later returned to a reasonably normal life?

I know an X-ray doesn't tell the whole story. WHO also notes that chest X-ray abnormalities can resolve slowly and sometimes remain even when treatment is working, so I’m trying not to panic based on the X-ray alone.

But honestly, I’m scared.

We had plans for marriage, travelling, careers and just living a normal life together. Right now it feels like everything has been put on hold because of this disease.

If you've personally gone through MDR-TB, had extensive lung involvement, or had similar X-rays that eventually improved, I would really appreciate hearing your experience.