How Do You Get Oral Chlamydia
You increase your risk of getting oral pharyngeal chlamydial infections by not using protection or having multiple sexual partners. One study looked into the rates of oral chlamydia infection in heterosexuals who had known or suspected genital infection and reported recent unprotected oral sex. It found that 7% of women and almost 3% of men had positive throat swabs .
Not only can you get an oral chlamydia infection from oral sex, but if you have pharyngeal chlamydia, you may infect the genitals of a partner. One study found that 3.5% of MSW whose only exposure in the past three months was receiving fellatio from a woman were positive for urethral chlamydia .
Another study found that close to 5% of MSM whose only exposure in the past three months was receiving fellatio from a man were positive for urethral chlamydia .
According to the CDC, there is less data on the transmission of chlamydia from an infected vagina to the throat, an infected throat to the vagina, an infected rectum to the throat, or an infected throat to the rectum .
What Do Urine Tests Show
A urinalysis is a test of your urine. A urinalysis is used to detect and manage a wide range of disorders, such as urinary tract infections, kidney disease and diabetes. A urinalysis involves checking the appearance, concentration and content of urine. Abnormal urinalysis results may point to a disease or illness.
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How Can I Prevent Catching Oral Chlamydia
There are risk factors that increase your chances of getting chlamydia. These include:
- Being sexually active and under age 25
- Having multiple sexual partners
- Having a history of sexually transmitted infection
There are certain steps you can take to prevent catching oral chlamydia including:
- Using condoms for mouth to penis contact
- Talking to your sexual partner about their sexual health
- Using barrier methods, such as condoms, during each encounter
- Having a regular sexual health check or STI tests, especially if you have unprotected sex with a new partner
The recurrence rate of chlamydia is particularly high. This makes it even more important to practice safe oral sex and prevent future infections.
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Types Of Chlamydia Pneumoniae
Chlamydia is intracellular bacterium which makes the host cell parasitized for energy. They have cell walls with outer and inner membranes just like Gram-negative bacteria. They replicate by binary fission and contain RNA, DNA and ribosomes.
But they differ from true bacteria because they do not possess the ability to produce their adenosine triphosphate. The life cycle of a Chlamydia can be divided into Raticulate Bodies and Elementary Bodies.
They can be divided into 4 types of species:
Chlamydia In The Throat: Symptoms Treatment & More
When it comes to avoiding sexually transmitted infections , some people think oral sex is safer than intercourse. But several STIssuch as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphiliscan spread through oral sex.
In this article, Ill focus on chlamydia and oral sex. Like chlamydia in the genital area, chlamydia in the throat may not cause any symptoms, so its important to practice safe oral sex, talk to your sexual partners about their health, and get tested for STIs.
In many cases, chlamydia is curable with antibiotics, however an untreated chlamydia infection can result in serious health problems, including ectopic pregnancy and infertility.
So if you think you may have chlamydia, its important to see a healthcare provider.
Read on to learn how you can get chlamydia from oral sex, what the symptoms are, how to get diagnosed and treated for it, and when to see your doctor.
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Can Chlamydia Affect My Fertility
A chlamydia or gonorrhea infection may cause inflammation or scarring of the reproductive organs. Sometimes, this may lead to infertility . Both men and women can experience fertility problems after a chlamydia infection. Your risk of infertility increases if you delay treatment.
Women with untreated gonorrhea or chlamydia can also develop a condition known as pelvic inflammatory disease . PID sometimes causes your reproductive organs to swell, triggering chronic pelvic pain and making it difficult to conceive.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea can also trigger early laborâand pregnant women with chlamydia can spread the infection to their babies during delivery .
Prompt treatment reduces your risk of complications, as undiagnosed chlamydia may put your health at risk. Regular STI testing can help with early diagnosis of the infection, and most people who receive treatment for chlamydia make a full recovery.
Learning more about the different types of STDs someone can getâlike chlamydiaâcan help you care for your sexual health. To easily check for chlamydia from the comfort of home, simply collect a urine sample and send it to a lab with prepaid shipping using the Everlywell at-home Gonorrhea and Chlamydia test kit.
How Is Oral Chlamydia Related To Other Chlamydias
Chlamydia is the name of a group of bacteria the type of chlamydia that affects genitals and the throat is called chlamydia trachomatis. This is only a subset of chlamydia bacteria and there other types.
Other types of chlamydias there are some alternative forms of chlamydia to the strain responsible for oral infections, including:
- Lymphogranuloma venereum this can also cause genital infections but is very rare in the UK
- Chlamydia psittaci which cause a flu-like illness
- Chlamydia pneumoniae which causes pneumonia in adults
Do tests vary between different types of chlamydia? yes. The tests for chlamydia will be different even for the same strain of chlamydia depending on where the infection is:
- Throat swab for mouth chlamydia
- Vulvovaginal swab for genital chlamydia in women
- A urine test for genital chlamydia in men
Other different strains or types of chlamydia also require different tests as they affect other parts of the body such as the lungs or eyes.
Does treatment vary between types of chlamydia? generally not very much. Because different types of chlamydia are still all bacterial infections, they are usually treated with broad spectrum antibiotics like doxycycline.
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What To Think About
- If a chlamydia infection is suspected, do not have sexual intercourse until the test results have come back. If you have a chlamydia infection, do not have sexual intercourse for 7 days after the start of treatment. Your sex partner should also be treated for a chlamydia infection so that you dont get reinfected and so that others dont get infected.
- Screening for and treating chlamydia can help prevent pelvic inflammatory disease . To learn more about the treatment of a chlamydia infection, see the topic Chlamydia.
- Other sexually transmitted infections may be present at the same time as chlamydia. So it is important to be tested and treated for all STIs. Chlamydia as well as other STIs can also increase the chance of getting human immunodeficiency virus . An HIV test may be offered at the same time as a test for chlamydia or other STIs.
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Specimen Collection And Handling
Urine specimens are the specimen of choice for males and post-hysterectomy female patients.
For females in general, urine is a second-line option, because it is less sensitive than cervical swabs for CT/GC NAAT. For testing non-post-hysterectomy female patients, please refer to the test information sheet for specimen collection and testing information.
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How Long Does It Take To Show Up On A Test
There are several tests that you doctor might use to diagnose chlamydia:
- Urine test. Youll pee in a cup thats sent off to a laboratory testing facility to see if any chlamydia bacteria are present in your urine.
- Blood test. Your doctor will use a sterile needle to draw some of your blood and send it to a lab to see if antibodies to the chlamydia bacteria are present in your bloodstream.
- Swab. Your doctor will use a cotton round or stick to take a small sample of tissue or fluid that carries the infection, which is then sent to a lab to be cultured so that lab technicians can see what bacteria grows from the sample.
How long it takes for the results to show up depends on the test and on your specific health insurance plan.
- Urine tests take about 2 to 5 days to show a positive or negative result.
- Blood tests can come back with results in a few minutes if the blood is analyzed on site. But they can take a week or more if sent to an off-site lab.
- Swab results take about 2 to 3 days to show a positive or negative.
1 to 3 weeks to show up in people with vulvas.
Symptoms may take up a few months to show up. This is because bacteria are living creatures and have an incubation period that affects how long it takes them to cluster together and become infectious.
This incubation period is dependent on a variety of factors, including:
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Do Regular Sti Tests Include Herpes
No. If you dont have symptoms, STI testing includes gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV and syphilis, and only involves time with a medical assistant. The Centers for Disease Control does not recommend herpes testing for people without symptoms.
If you think youve been exposed to herpes, but you arent showing symptoms, make sure to tell your health care provider prior to getting tested. At Planned Parenthood, herpes testing requires a visit with the nurse practitioner.
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What To Expect From A Chlamydia Blood Test
When the body is infected by the chlamydia trachomatis bacteria, it develops antibodies called IgM antibodies that circulate in the blood. This chlamydia blood test identifies if these IgM antibodies are in the blood to determine if there is a current chlamydia infection
It should be noted that chlamydia is not a bloodborne disease. This chlamydia blood test should not be used to diagnose chlamydia infection of the urogenital area . This chlamydia test helps determine if a chlamydia infection is affecting non-genital regions of the body, for example, chlamydia trachomatis can cause conjunctivitis . If youre interested in getting tested to diagnose a chlamydia infection of the urogenital area, consider a urine chlamydia test.
A chlamydia blood test requires a blood draw from the arm. To complete this test, place your order on our website and use our lab locator to find a location that is most convenient for you. You do not need an appointmentsimply show your lab requisition form upon arriving to the lab. The results will to your HealthLabs.com account in one to three business days.
Comparing Urine Sti Tests To Other Sti Tests
Some people still question whether urine testing is as effective at detecting bacterial STI like chlamydia and gonorrhea. These questions usually focus on the efficacy of the tests in women. Why?
The most common site of female infection is not on the pathway that urine travels out of the body. In contrast, urine passes through the most common site of infection , in men.
A 2015 review that examined 21 studies on the relative effectiveness of using different types of samples to detect chlamydia and gonorrhea found that:
- For chlamydia testing in women, the sensitivity and specificity were 87% and 99%, respectively, for urine samples compared to cervical samples.
- For chlamydia testing in men, the sensitivity and specificity were 88% and 99%. respectively, for urine samples compared to urethral samples.
- For gonorrhea testing in women, the sensitivity and specificity were 79% and 99%, respectively, for urine samples compared to cervical samples.
- For gonorrhea testing in men, the sensitivity and specificity were 92% and 99%, respectively, for urine samples compared to urethral samples.
By and large, these results are relatively consistent across studies. Interestingly, self-collected vaginal swabs were closer in effectiveness to cervical swabs than urine testing. For some women, those may be a more acceptable alternative to a pelvic exam if urine testing isn’t available.
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How Common Is Mouth Chlamydia
It is difficult to be sure how commonly chlamydia is found in the throat, as study results are varied. In fact, most people with oral chlamydia do not have a sore throat and are unaware of the infection unless they test positive.
Its not always tested for the throat is not routinely sampled for chlamydia when you go for an STI screen. This is because current chlamydia tests may produce false positive results and cause anxiety. In addition, the chance of having oral chlamydia is extremely low .
When are people at risk? in a clinic, you may be offered a throat swab for chlamydia if there are other risk factors such as:
How Do You Treat Oral Chlamydia
95% of those who suffer from chlamydia will be treated effectively if they take antibiotics correctly following their diagnosis.
Whilst our tests can detect the presence of regular chlamydia through a urine sample, we do not currently offer to test for oral chlamydia. A swab based sample test is required for oral chlamydia detection, commonly procured through a medical professional or sexual health clinic.
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How Do You Test For Chlamydia
Nucleic Acid Amplification The three NAA tests described below work by finding the DNA of chlamydia bacteria. Because NAA tests search for the bacterias genetic material, it is very unlikely that a false-positive test result will occur. The incubation period for chlamydia is 1-5 days, so wait at least five days after potential chlamydia exposure before getting tested to ensure the most accurate results possible.
Urine samples
- Testing via urine samples needs to consist of first-catch urine . Patients should not include more than the first-catch in the collection cup to avoid diluting the sample.
- Patients should not urinate for at least one hour prior to providing a sample.
- Female patients should not cleanse the labial area prior to providing the specimen.
Swab cultures
Why shouldnt you get tested for chlamydia via a blood test?
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay Antibodies, IgM
- IgM antibodies are found mainly in the blood and lymph fluid they are the first antibody to be made by the body to fight a new infection.
- This blood samples results should not be used as a diagnostic procedure without confirmation of the diagnosis by another medically established diagnostic product or procedure.
Enzyme immunoassay Antibodies, IgG
- IgG antibodies are the most abundant type of antibody they are found in all body fluids and protect against bacterial and viral infections.
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Where To Get Tested For Chlamydia
In United States, we have over 4,000 testing centres across the country for Chlamydia. A person can get a test done at any of these testing centres.
Someone is required to book the test in advance through over website before visiting any of our Chlamydia testing centers. We do not accept any payment at the testing centre.
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D Sexually Transmitted Infections
A urinalysis can give clues to the presence of sexually transmitted infections. A positive dipstick for leukocyte esterase or increased numbers of white blood cells in the microscopic exam is suggestive of chlamydia or gonoccocal infection. However, because of its low sensitivity this test should not be considered an effective screening method for these infections. For example, in one study, the presence of leukocyte esterase was only 61% sensitive for chlamydia infections in males.3 For a complete discussion of screening refugees for STIs, see Screening for Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Infant Pneumonia Caused By C Trachomatis
Chlamydial pneumonia among infants typically occurs at age 13 months and is a subacute pneumonia. Characteristic signs of chlamydial pneumonia among infants include a repetitive staccato cough with tachypnea and hyperinflation and bilateral diffuse infiltrates on a chest radiograph. In addition, peripheral eosinophilia occurs frequently. Because clinical presentations differ, all infants aged 13 months suspected of having pneumonia, especially those whose mothers have a history of, are at risk for , or suspected of having a chlamydial infection should be tested for C. trachomatis and treated if infected.
Diagnostic Considerations
Specimens for chlamydial testing should be collected from the nasopharynx. Tissue culture is the definitive standard diagnostic test for chlamydial pneumonia. Nonculture tests can be used. DFA is the only nonculture FDA-cleared test for detecting C. trachomatis from nasopharyngeal specimens however, DFA of nasopharyngeal specimens has a lower sensitivity and specificity than culture. NAATs are not cleared by FDA for detecting chlamydia from nasopharyngeal specimens, and clinical laboratories should verify the procedure according to CLIA regulations . Tracheal aspirates and lung biopsy specimens, if collected, should be tested for C. trachomatis.
Treatment
Erythromycin base or ethylsuccinate 50 mg/kg body weight/day orally divided into 4 doses daily for 14 days
Azithromycin suspension 20 mg/kg body weight/day orally, 1 dose daily for 3 days
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