Chlamydia is one of the most common STDs and is the leading cause of preventable infertility.
If left untreated, Chlamydia may also lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancy risk in women. Chlamydia is both treatable and preventable.
Chlamydia is caused by bacteria called Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted infection (STI), which means that you get it through having unprotected sex (sex without a condom) with someone who has chlamydia.
Symptoms
Chlamydia is known as a ‘silent’ infection because most infected people have no symptoms. If symptoms do occur, they may not appear until several weeks after exposure. Even when it causes no symptoms, chlamydia can damage a woman’s reproductive organs.
In women, the bacteria first infect the cervix (the structure that connects the vagina or birth canal to the uterus or womb) and the urethra (urine canal). Some infected women have an abnormal vaginal discharge or a burning sensation when urinating.
Untreated infections can spread upward to the uterus and fallopian tubes (tubes that carry fertilized eggs from the ovaries to the uterus), causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
PID can be silent or can cause symptoms such as abdominal and pelvic pain. Even if PID causes no symptoms initially, it can lead to infertility (not getting pregnant) and other complications later on.
Some infected men have discharge from their penis or a burning sensation when urinating. Pain and swelling in one or both testicles (known as “epididymitis”) may also occur but is less common.
Chlamydia can also infect the rectum in men and women, either through receptive anal sex or possibly via spread from the cervix and vagina. While these infections often cause no symptoms, they can cause rectal pain, discharge, and bleeding (known as “proctitis”).
If you have had oral sex with someone who has chlamydia, you may get this infection in your throat, which can lead to painful swallowing, a cough, and a fever.
Complications
The initial damage that chlamydia causes often goes unnoticed. However, chlamydial infections can lead to serious health problems.
In women, untreated infection can spread upward to the uterus and fallopian tubes (tubes that carry fertilized eggs from the ovaries to the uterus), causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID can be silent or can cause symptoms such as abdominal and pelvic pain. Both symptomatic and silent PID can cause permanent damage to a woman’s reproductive tract and lead to long-term pelvic pain, inability to get pregnant, and potentially deadly ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy outside the uterus).
In pregnant women, untreated chlamydia has been associated with pre-term delivery and can spread to the newborn, causing an eye infection or pneumonia.
Complications are rare in men. Infection sometimes spreads to the tube that carries sperm from the testis, causing pain, fever, and, rarely, preventing a man from being able to father children.
Get help
Treatment
Chlamydia is treated with antibiotics. Some antibiotics can cure it in just one dose, while others may need to be used for seven days. If you’ve been treated, your partner(s) should also be tested and treated. You should wait seven days or until you and your partner(s) finish the antibiotics (whichever is longer) before having sex again. This is to make sure you don’t spread the infection.
If in doubt, get tested. There are urine and swab tests available specifically for chlamydia.
Prevention
The only way to avoid STDs is not to have vaginal, anal, or oral sex.
If you are sexually active, you can do the following things to lower your chances of getting chlamydia:
• Being in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and has negative STD test results;
• Using latex condoms the right way every time you have sex.
Quiz
Learn more about STDs by doing the STD Quiz.
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