Can Azithromycin Treat Chlamydia And Gonorrhea

How To Talk To Your Partner About Chlamydia

If you test positive for chlamydia, you must inform your sexual partner. Understandably, this can be a sensitive and awkward conversation. Try to be open, honest, and calm.

Some monogamous partners may be worried about being accused of cheating. This is a normal concern. However, you can inform your partner that because chlamydia is so often asymptomatic , you could have had the infection for months or years before your relationship began it does not necessarily indicate infidelity.

In Both Males And Females

Complications that may be seen in anyone include:

• Other STIs. Chlamydia and gonorrhea both make you more susceptible to other STIs, including human immunodeficiency virus . Having chlamydia can also increase your risk of developing gonorrhea, and vice versa.
• Reactive arthritis . Also called Reiters syndrome, this condition results from an infection in your urinary tract or intestines. Symptoms of this condition cause pain, swelling, or tightness in your joints and eyes, and a variety of other symptoms.
• Infertility. Damage to reproductive organs or to sperm can make it more challenging or, in some cases, impossible to become pregnant or to impregnate your partner.

What Are The Treatments For Chlamydia

If you are diagnosed with chlamydia, your doctor will prescribe oral antibiotics. A single dose of azithromycin or taking doxycycline twice daily for 7 to 14 days are the most common treatments and are the same for those with or without HIV.

With treatment, the infection should clear up in about a week. Do not have sex for at least 7 days until you have taken all of your medication, and do not stop taking the antibiotics even if you feel better.

Your doctor will also recommend that your partner be treated as well to prevent reinfection and further spread of the disease.

Women with serious infections, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, may require a longer course of antibiotics or hospitalization for intravenous antibiotics. Some severe pelvic infections may require surgery in addition to antibiotic therapy.

Make sure you get retested after three months to be certain the infection is gone. Do this even if your partner has been treated and appears to be infection free.

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How Can I Tell My Partner Will They Think I’ve Cheated On Them

You may feel embarrassed, scared or angry. However it is important and respectful to let your partner know as soon as possible so they can get tested and treated. Remember that chlamydia often has no symptoms, so a diagnosis doesn’t necessarily mean the infection was caught recently. You may not be sure when you were exposed. Many people are surprised how supportive their partner is, and how they appreciate being confided in.

Does Chlamydia Treatment Have Side Effects

An antibiotic called Doxycycline is the most common medicine used to treat chlamydia. Like most medicines, it can cause mild side effects. The most common side effects of Doxycycline are nausea, vomiting, upset stomach, loss of appetite, mild diarrhea, skin rash or itching, change in skin color, vaginal itching, or discharge. These side effects should go away after you finish taking the medicine. Talk to your nurse or doctor about any medicines youre already taking and any medical issues you already have before taking Doxycycline.

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Who Should Take An At

Before you start worrying about amoxicillin, you should first get a proper diagnosis. For cases in which chlamydia orgonorrhea symptoms are present, these are the signs to watch out for:

• More frequent urination or the urge to urinate
• Painful sensation when urinating
• Sore throat that wont go away
• Testicular pain and swelling in men
• Lower abdominal pain in women
• Heavier period or excessive spotting in women

If you notice any of these symptoms, its in your best interest to purchase an at-home STD kit to test for gonorrhea and chlamydia right away.

Dont assume that you dont need to get tested simply because you arent experiencing any symptoms. In many cases, gonorrhea and chlamydia may not show any visible signs of infection at all. For this reason, every sexually active person should be tested regularly for all common sexually transmitted infections.

In general, the CDC recommends that every sexually active adult get tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea at least once a year.But if you engage in certain sexual activities, you may need to get tested more frequently.This is especially true for people who meet one or more of the following conditions:

• You have recently entered a new relationship.
• You and your partner no longer want to use condoms.
• You or your partner have multiple partners.
• You recently had unprotected sex.
• You believe you may have been exposed to gonorrhea or chlamydia.

Chlamydia Treatment And Prevention

Milly DawsonSanjai Sinha, MDShutterstock

Chlamydia is easy to cure. If you test positive for chlamydia, basically you take an antibiotic, says Jill Rabin, MD, cochief in the division of ambulatory care for women’s health programs and prenatal care assistance program services for Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York.

Your partner must take an antibiotic, too, to keep them from reinfecting you, she says.

You have to have your partner treated, and if you have more than one partner, they should all be treated, says Dr. Rabin, regardless of your partners genders.

Even if you dont have chlamydia now, its wise to learn how to protect yourself so you wont develop this common infection in the first place. In women, chlamydia can create serious health problems, including infertility. Besides, no one ever wants to have a sexually transmitted disease and then have to tell other people about it.

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Diseases Characterized By Urethritis And Cervicitis

IM = intramuscularly.

Reprinted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 1998 Guidelines for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 1998 47:1111.

*Mucopurulent cervicitis should be treated according to the guidelines for chlamydial and gonococcal infections.

Estimated cost to the pharmacist based on average wholesale prices in Red book. Montvale, N.J.: Medical Economics Data, 1999. Cost to the patient will be higher, depending on prescription filling fee.

Several regimens for the management of patients with nongonococcal urethritis are outlined in Table 2. Oral azithromycin is recommended as single-dose therapy.57 Improved compliance and the ability to observe therapy are advantages associated with single-dose regimens.

Drug Treatment Of Common Stds: Part I Herpes Syphilis Urethritis Chlamydia And Gonorrhea

CAROL WOODWARD, PHARM.D., West Virginia University Hospitals, Morgantown, West Virginia

MELANIE A. FISHER, M.D., M.SC., West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia

Am Fam Physician. 1999 Oct 1 60:1387-1394.

This is Part I of a two-part article on drug treatment of common sexually transmitted diseases. Part II, Vaginal Infections, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and Genital Warts, will appear in the next issue of AFP.

Several advances have been made in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases . These advances have been incorporated into the 1998 Guidelines for the Treatment of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .1

Highly effective single-dose oral therapies are now available for most common curable STDs. Single-dose regimens may be used for the treatment of chancroid, nongonococcal urethritis, uncomplicated gonococcal infections, bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, candidal vaginitis and chlamydial infections.

Improved therapies are now available for the treatment of genital herpes and human papillomavirus infections. New regimens have been approved for the use of acyclovir in the treatment of genital herpes. In addition, two new antiviral agents, valacyclovir and famciclovir , have been labeled for the treatment of genital herpes. Patient-applied therapies are now recommended for management of HPV.

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How Long Does Azithromycin Take To Cure Chlamydia

It usually takes approximately 7 days for azithromycin to cure chlamydia. However, it can take up to 2 weeks for the infection to go away completely.

Avoid having sex during treatment or until the infection has cleared. Youll want to make sure its completely cured, or else youll risk passing it to someone else.

What Are Warnings And Precautions For Azithromycin

Warnings

This medication contains azithromycin. Do not take Zithromax or Zmax if you are allergic to azithromycin or any ingredients contained in this drug.

Keep out of reach of children. In case of overdose, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center immediately.

Contraindications

History of cholestatic jaundice or hepatic impairment associated with prior azithromycin use

Coadministration with pimozide

See What Are Side Effects Associated with Using Azithromycin?

Long-term Effects

See âWhat Are Side Effects Associated with Using Azithromycin?â

Cautions

Use with caution in abnormalliver function, hepatitis, cholestatic jaundice, hepatic necrosis, and hepatic failure have been reported, some of which have resulted in death discontinue azithromycin immediately if signs and symptoms of hepatitis occur.

Injection-site reactions can occur with IV route.

In treatment of gonorrhea or syphilis, perform susceptibility culture tests before initiating azithromycin therapy may mask or delay symptoms of incubating gonorrhea or syphilis.

Bacterial or fungal super-infection may result from prolonged use.

Pneumonia: oral azithromycin is safe and effective only for community-acquired pneumonia due to C pneumoniae, H influenzae, M pneumoniae, or S pneumonia.

Endocarditisprophylaxis: Indicated only for high-risk patients, per current AHA guidelines.

Use caution in renal impairment .

Use with caution in patients with myasthenia gravis .

Pregnancy and Lactation

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Why No Mention Of The Single

The evidence basis for the change to doxycycline for treatment of chlamydia co-infection coverage is substantially weaker. It is also decidedly mute on the risks of partial or non-compliance with treatment. The question then becomes: How profound is the treatment effect and how does it balance against its risks?

The guideline states, as evidence for the doxycycline switch:

A recent investigation comparing children who received twice-yearly azithromycin with children who received placebo found that the guts resistome, a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance genes in the body, had increased determinants of macrolide and nonmacrolide resistance, including beta-lactam antibiotics, among children receiving azithromycin .3 A higher proportion of macrolide resistance in nasopharyngeal Streptococcus pneumoniae was demonstrated in communities receiving mass administration of oral azithromycin .4 Azithromycin resistance has been demonstrated in another STI, Mycoplasma genitalium, and sexually transmissible enteric pathogens 5-7. In addition, evidence supports increasing concern for the efficacy of azithromycin to treat chlamydial infections, especially rectal infections 8,9.

That really leaves the meta-analysis8 to answer our question: how best do we protect the reproductive health of our patients in the setting of diagnostic uncertainty?

The Costs Of Infertility

Treating chlamydia is easy, but for those who do not get treated or get treated too late, living with the damage caused by the infection can be hard.

Rabin has treated many women who never knew they had had chlamydia until they couldnt get pregnant due to blocked fallopian tubes. These women often wind up trying in vitro fertilization , which does not always succeed.

There are all kinds of costs involved for these women, say Rabin. There are emotional costs and physical costs. There are also financial costs with IVF. Its much better to not let the tubes get damaged, she says, and get pregnant the old-fashioned way.

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Get Retested Following Treatment

Many people have more than one chlamydia infection. If youre a girl or woman and your sex partners are not treated for the infection, you will be at high risk for reinfection. Repeated infections with chlamydia make it much more likely that your ability to have children will be affected. Repeated infections also raise your risk of painful complications, such as pelvic inflammatory disease.

Both women and men with chlamydia should be retested about three months after they are first diagnosed and treated. Go to be retested even if you think your sex partners were successfully treated.

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Why Is It Important To Treat Chlamydia

If left untreated chlamydia is unlikely to go away. It can be passed onto sexual partners and can cause serious harm. Women can get cervicitis or pelvic inflammatory disease. This can result in permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, which may lead to infertility or ectopic pregnancy. Chlamydia also can cause a reactive arthritis. Men can suffer with urethritis , this can spread to the contents of the scrotal sac – epididymis and testicles. This causes pain, and in severe cases infertility. Men can also get a reactive arthritis.

When Should You Test For Gonorrhea Or Chlamydia At Home

If youve recently had unprotected sex or potentially been exposed to gonorrhea or chlamydia, you may think that its important to get tested immediately. But taking an STD test too soon could actually lead to inaccurate results. Why? STDs such as gonorrhea and chlamydia will not be detectable in your system immediately following exposure. If you take a test too early, you may get a false negative result.

So how long should you wait to get tested for STDs? Every STD has a unique incubation period, which is the amount of time that it takes for the STD to be detectable in your system. The incubation period for chlamydia can range from 7 days to 21 days, whereas the incubation period for gonorrhea is up to 14 days.

Therefore, it is best to get tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea two to three weeks following the initial exposure. If you take a test within the first two to three weeks following exposure, its best to get tested again after several weeks to ensure your initial results were accurate.

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What If Symptoms Persist

Unfortunately, some types of gonorrhea bacteria dont respond to the usual antibiotic treatment. Doctors call this antibiotic resistance. Theyve been seeing a rise in these stronger bacteria for several years. If you continue to have symptoms a few days after treatment, see your doctor again. They may prescribe a longer course of different antibiotics

Will I Need To Go Back To The Clinic

If you take your antibiotics correctly, you may not need to return to the clinic.

However, you will be advised to go back for another chlamydia test if:

• you had sex before you and your partner finished treatment
• you forgot to take your medication or didn’t take it properly
• your symptoms don’t go away
• you’re pregnant

If you’re under 25 years of age, you should be offered a repeat test for chlamydia 3 to 6 months after finishing your treatment because you’re at a higher risk of catching it again.

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What Happens If You Dont Get Treated For Chlamydia

Even though chlamydia is common and doesnt usually cause any symptoms, it can become a big deal if its not caught and treated early.

Chlamydia can spread to your uterus and fallopian tubes if it goes untreated for a long time. This can cause you to have pelvic inflammatory disease . PID can cause permanent damage that leads to pain, infertility, or ectopic pregnancy. So getting tested regularly for chlamydia really lowers your chances of getting PID.

Having chlamydia may increase your chances of getting or spreading HIV.

If you have chlamydia during your pregnancy and dont treat it, you can pass it to your baby when youre giving birth. Chlamydia can also cause eye infections and pneumonia in newborns, and it also increases the risk of delivering your baby too early.

Testing and treatment for chlamydia is quick, easy, and the best way to avoid all of these problems.

Is Remdesivir Used To Treat Covid

COVID-19Common questionIs remdesivir used to treat COVID-19?Remdesivir injection is used to treat coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in hospitalized adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds . Remdesivir is in a class of medications called antivirals.

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Why A Higher Dose Of Ceftriaxone For Gonorrhea

It is important to note that the evidence of ceftriaxone, cefixime, and azithromycin resistance for gonorrhea is substantial.2 Observational data from across the United States and world demonstrate worsening resistance patterns. Many of our pharmacy colleagues are working on obtaining 500 mg/2 mL ceftriaxone for injection vials, so it can be given in single injection . While this guideline may be existentially troubling, this change is practically feasible and should become standard of care.

Read more about the Trick of the Trade on administering IV instead of IM ceftriaxone for gonorrohea.

Sex Partners Need Treatment Too

If you are diagnosed with chlamydia, you will need to tell all of your sexual partners, because they will need the same treatment you are receiving.

In most states, a doctor or other healthcare provider can give you the medicine that your partner or partners will need to take. Then you can deliver it to those partners. This practice is called expedited partner therapy or patient delivered partner therapy.

These options can help a lot if your partner doesnt have a healthcare provider or feels embarrassed about seeking care, says Dr. Dombrowski.

Its natural to feel nervous or upset about having to tell your partner or partners about having an STD. Your healthcare provider can help with this problem. They may even rehearse the conversation with you, says Dombrowksi.

Learning about chlamydia and seeking advice from a healthcare provider about how to discuss it with your partner can help you handle the conversation with less anxiety and more confidence.

Remember, chlamydia is not just common: It is the most common infection reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . You are being helpful, mature, and responsible by telling your partners.

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