The most common test for chlamydia, this is a simple, non-invasive test during which you collect a swab or urine sample yourself (called ‘self-collection’). Your doctor may ask you to have a sample taken from the vagina, cervix, throat, anus or penis. Once the sample is collected, it is sent to a laboratory for testing. Most people with chlamydia don’t have symptoms, which means you may not know if you or your partner has it. You can tell your partner to go to the clinic you went to.
With an Existing Partner
People who do notice symptoms often don’t recognize the signs that they have chlamydia until a few weeks after they’ve been infected. Because chlamydia cases are often asymptomatic, it’s easy to spread chlamydia to someone else without realizing it. And it’s easy to miss out on receiving the treatment needed to prevent the serious complications that can result from chlamydia. Can I treat my boyfriend for chlamydia without him knowing?
When to see a doctor
Pregnant people can give chlamydia to their baby during childbirth. Even if you aren’t actively experiencing symptoms, it’s still possible to pass a disease to someone else. Your partner should discuss when and how often they should be tested with their healthcare provider, as well as monitor any symptoms that may present. Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection that can sometimes go undetected but often causes unpleasant symptoms. Thankfully, effective treatments exist for chlamydial infections.
There’s still a huge stigma around STIs, and some people would rather live their lives in not knowing rather than get tested to know for sure. When several major STIs are asymptomatic or have very subtle symptoms, https://datingrated.com/ it’s pretty easy to ignore. But not getting tested out of fear or thinking you can’t possibly get an STI because you’ve been safe, can have consequences for not only you but your partner as well.
To prevent spreading the disease to your partner, you should not have sex until the infection has cleared up. If you got a one-time dose of antibiotics, you should wait 7 days after taking the medicine to have sex again. If you have to take medicine every day for 7 days, you should not have sex again until you have finished taking all of the doses of your medicine.
The Hispanic or Latino communities are 1 to 2 times more likely to get chlamydia than non-Hispanic Whites. The incidence rate of chlamydia continuously rose between 2000 and 2019 before declining between 2019 and 2020. In the year 2000, rates were roughly 250 cases per 100,000 people in the country. By 2019, those rates had risen to just over 500 cases per 100,000 people.
You may get a one-time dose of the antibiotics, or you may need to take medicine every day for 7 days. It is important to take all the medicine that your provider prescribed for you. Antibiotics cannot repair any permanent damage that the disease has caused. You can get chlamydia during oral, vaginal, or anal sex with someone who has chlamydia. A pregnant person can also pass chlamydia to the baby during childbirth.
That said, roughly 61% of chlamydia cases in both sexes combined are found in people between the ages of 15 and 24 with people with uteruses in this age group being the most affected. Some people think that because there’s no cure for chlamydia that it isn’t a serious disease. But this disease can cause long-term consequences such as infertility, so anyone who suspects they might have contracted it should see a doctor right away. Antibiotics are an effective therapy to cure chlamydia. Learn about the different chlamydia treatment pills a doctor may prescribe. Medical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations.
Otherwise, the infection may not be completely eliminated and you could be at risk for reinfection. You could also still pass chlamydia to a partner if you don’t complete the recommended course of antibiotics. In fact, any time you come in contact with the bacteria—even if your sex partner doesn’t ejaculate or you aren’t fully penetrated—you could become infected or pass along the chlamydial infection. This being the case, men and women should get tested for STIs before beginning any new sexual relationship. If ease of meeting sex partners translates to more unprotected sex, it makes sense that a spike in STI cases would occur.
Communicate honestly with your partner about what sex you’re having and what sex they’re having. Practice safer sex to reduce your risk of catching chlamydia, and get regularly screened to be sure. Some sexually transmitted bacterial infections are starting to become resistant to antibiotics, though, and this makes them harder to treat. With this in mind, the best way to fight chlamydia is to prevent infections from spreading. For the sixth year in a row, sexually transmitted disease and infection diagnoses recently reached an all-time high, particularly among young adults ages 18–24. Most people diagnosed with these conditions are able to be treated or have their condition managed with medication or regular testing, and can live normal lives.
It is possible to get chlamydia, or any other STI, if you are a woman who has sex only with women. Chlamydia lives in the reproductive tract of an infected woman and can pass to a sex partner, whether male or female. The best way to prevent chlamydia or any STI is to not have vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading chlamydia. If your or your partner is allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms. If you’ve had chlamydia and were treated in the past, you can get re-infected if you have unprotected sex with someone who has it.
When you go to your doctor for treatment, you will get a pelvic exam. If your doctor does not suspect that you have any other infections, they will give you antibiotics to take for 10 days to two weeks. In 2010, more than half of these were among people aged years old. The infection is most common in those who have multiple partners.