You Could Have Chlamydia And Not Know It
Chlamydia is transmitted from one person to another during sex vaginal, anal, or oral. If you get it from your partner, symptoms generally show up within a few weeks of the time you were exposed. Those symptoms include pain or burning during urination and genital discharge for both men and women. Men may also have painful testicles, and women may have bleeding between periods.
However, chlamydia is notorious for being asymptomatic, which means you may have chlamydia and never even know it. And thats dangerous, because left untreated, chlamydia can cause damage you might not catch until its too late.
This is why if youre sexually active, you should come in to see Dr. Kushner for regular STD testing. Early diagnosis can prevent some severe complications.
Will Chlamydia Cause Infertility
If not treated, chlamydia can lead to damage to the reproductive system. In women, chlamydial infection can spread to the uterus or fallopian tubes and cause pelvic inflammatory disease , according to the CDC. PID can damage the fallopian tubes and uterus and cause chronic pain, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy.
Natural Ways To Treat Chlamydia Without Going Doctor
In research, it is proved that no natural remedy can cure Chlamydia till now. But there are various natural supplements available which can cure the immune system which is the main cause of having Chlamydia. Some of them are:-
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How To Help Partners Get Treatment
If you are not sure whether your sexual partner will seek treatment, ask your doctor for extra chlamydia medication . You can give it to them so they can be treated as soon as possible.
This is known as patient delivered partner therapy for chlamydia. Talk to your doctor to see if PDPT is right for you and your sexual partner.
How Do I Get Tested For Chlamydia
You can be checked for chlamydia by your doctor, nurse or at a sexual health clinic. Theres no need to be embarrassed, it is far better to get checked than to have untreated chlamydia.
Women will need to have a swab taken from their vagina. If you have no symptoms, you can do the swab yourself. If you do have symptoms, a doctor or nurse will need to examine you in case your symptoms are being caused by something else.
Men will need to take a urine test.
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The Spread Of Chlamydia
This particular STI is much more common in young people under the age of 25. The spread is more rapid among young women in particular. This may have something to do with the advent of hormonal birth control, as those taking it may be more likely to have sex without a condom. This may leave them exposed to infection. Though the pill, implant, coil and other forms of hormonal birth control prevent pregnancy, they offer no protection against STIs. Gonorrhoea and syphilis are also on the rise, but chlamydia remains the most commonly reported STI in Europe. Gay men are also susceptible to the disease in their throats and rectums, though women who are exclusively lesbian have a rate of diagnosis of less than 1%. It is recommended that sexually active people under the age of 25 get tested for chlamydia, and other STIs, at least once a year. The test is non-invasive and not painful. Treatment for chlamydia is relatively straightforward: a course of antibiotics can usually clear the infection up.
Stds & Fertility: Can You Get Pregnant With A Sexually Transmitted Disease
Past and present sexual health can play an important role in fertility. Some sexually transmitted diseases can leave scarring and inflammation which make it more difficult to conceive, even after the infection has been treated.
For women, this scarring usually occurs as a side effect of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease which develops as a secondary infection after contracting an STD. Having an active STD while pregnant may also have consequences for the health of the baby. Increasingly, the term STD is being replaced with STI, or sexually transmitted infection. This is to underline that many people can be infected without showing symptoms or developing a disease. Someone with an asymptomatic STI may still be at risk of passing on the infection to a partner or baby, or may eventually develop symptoms later.
Discussing your sexual health status can be uncomfortable, but it is an essential part of planning for a baby. The good news is that if you do have a history of a sexually transmitted infection, there are treatments which can help. Understanding how an STI can affect your fertility and what to do about it is important for any patient who wants to get pregnant after an STI.
Here is a look at some of the STDs, their potential impact on fertility and how you and your doctors can overcome fertility challenges and minimize risk before you get pregnant.
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How Long Can You Have Chlamydia Before It Causes Damage
Symptoms usually appear within one to three weeks after being infected and may be very mild. If not treated, chlamydia can lead to damage to the reproductive system. In women, chlamydial infection can spread to the uterus or fallopian tubes and cause pelvic inflammatory disease , according to the CDC.
All You Need To Know About Chlamydia And Infertility
Can Chlamydia cause infertility? Chlamydia is one of the common sexually transmitted diseases that is caused due to infection with the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia is among the most common STDs in the USA. According to estimates by the CDC , it affects 2.8 million people in America each year. Chlamydia may be transmitted via oral, anal or vaginal sex. It may also be transmitted from a female who is infected with the disease to her infant during childbirth. Any person who is sexually active can get infected with the bacterium. The risk of infection increases with the total number of partners you have sex with.
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How Chlamydia Affects Your Unborn Baby
If you happen to contract chlamydia while youre pregnant, you need to know that you can pass the disease along to your baby during childbirth.
One way your chlamydia affects your baby is through the eyes. The infection is passed along through the mucous and the baby develops conjunctivitis.
Another way is through the lungs, and chlamydia can cause your baby to develop pneumonia.
Dr. Kushner can screen you for chlamydia during your pregnancy and offer you a safe treatment plan. However, it may be best to plan for a C-section to keep your baby safe during delivery.
If you have, or think you might have, chlamydia, . And just to be safe, come in for a screening even if you dont have symptoms. It could save you, your partner, and your future baby a lot of pain.
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Ectopic Pregnancies Due To Chlamydia
When a woman gets pregnant, the egg is fertilised in the fallopian tubes before it moves to the womb .
An ectopic pregnancy happens when the egg implants outside the womb, for example in one of the fallopian tubes . This happens when PID, which is often caused by chlamydia, has caused scarring to the fallopian tubes and blocked them.
Recent studies have shown that chlamydia damages the fallopian tubes, inflicting a series of small scars. This process does not necessarily cause any symptoms and it often goes unnoticed.
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Chlamydia Can Lead To Infertility
A lot of us don’t realize that some sexually transmitted diseases can cause no symptoms, meaning you could have an STD and not know it. And some STDs can silently lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancy, or chronic pelvic pain.
Chlamydia is one of those diseases. CDC estimates that more than 2.8 million people are infected each year.
Chlamydia is most common in sexually active young adults. More than half of all infections involve people ages 18 to 24. You can get chlamydia during oral, vaginal, or anal sexual contact with an infected partner. The disease can cause penile discharge in men and infertility in women. It can also cause serious health problems in newborn babies of infected mothers.
Many women, and some men, are infected with chlamydia but don’t know it. Even without symptoms, the disease can cause complications, particularly infertility. The longer the infection is untreated, the more damage that can be done.
If symptoms do show up, they usually occur within weeks of exposure. Men and women may face painful urination, an abnormal discharge from the urethra, or both. Women also may have abdominal pain, bleeding, and an abnormal discharge from the vagina. Symptoms usually appear within one to three weeks after being infected and may be very mild.
In pregnant women, chlamydia can cause premature delivery, the CDC says. A child born to an infected woman can develop an infection in their eyes and respiratory tracts.
What Can Be Done To Prevent The Spread Of Chlamydia
- Limit your number of sex partners
- Use a male or female condom
- If you think you are infected or have been exposed, avoid any sexual contact and visit a local sexually transmitted disease clinic, a hospital or your doctor. Either bring your sex partners with you when you are treated or notify them immediately so they can obtain examination and treatment.
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Contact Us To Chat With A Fertility Advisor
The most important thing to know about infertility caused by undiscovered and untreated STIs is just thatits preventable. The infections that can lead to infertility, namely gonorrhea and chlamydia, are among the most common and most treatable, so testing and treatment can prevent the complications that can damage reproductive organs and leave a woman infertile.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea are both bacterial infections spread through sexual contact that can affect both men and women and are some of the most common STIs seen by doctors an estimated 2.86 million cases of chlamydia and 820,000 cases of gonorrhea occur annually in the United States. More often than not, an infected woman has no symptomsbut unfortunately, even asymptomatic infection can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, or PID. Doctors estimate that up to 40% of women who contract chlamydia or gonorrhea and dont properly treat the infection will wind up with PID, and up to half of PID cases are estimated by the CDC to be caused by chlamydia or gonorrhea infection.
Heres how PID happens: when a woman is infected with one of these STIs, microorganisms can travel upward from her cervix or vagina to the other reproductive organs, causing them to be infected, as well. The PID, in turn, can cause scar tissue on the fallopian tubes that blocks the pathway of the egg released from the ovary, preventing natural pregnancy and causing infertility.
How Common Is Ectopic Pregnancy
A little over 1% of all pregnancies in the UK are ectopic. The great majority of ectopic pregnancies result in miscarriage.
However, if the egg does implant in a fallopian tube, the woman needs to be treated or undergo surgery to remove the egg. Ectopic pregnancies are very dangerous and they can lead to internal bleeding.
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Chlamydia And Female Fertility
If left untreated, chlamydia can spread and infect other parts of the female reproductive system, in particular the uterus and fallopian tubes, which can result in pelvic inflammatory disease . With one in five women with chlamydia developing PID, chlamydia is the most common cause of infertility in women.
PID sometimes develops without causing symptoms and just like chlamydia, it is often diagnosed too late. Over time, the disease causes blocking or scarring to the fallopian tubes, which leads to infertility as well as miscarriage, premature birth and stillbirth.
In other cases, PID can lead to an ectopic pregnancy, which represents a serious health risk for the mother.
Chlamydia Reduces Male Fertility By Ravaging Sperm
Chlamydia the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US and UK causes dramatic genetic damage in sperm leading to male infertility, a new study suggests.
Men with chlamydia have more than three times the normal level of DNA fragmentation in their sperm, report researchers. However, results from the study also indicate that appropriate antibiotic treatment can help restore the genetic integrity of these mens sperm as well as their fertility.
Until recently, doctors believed that chlamydia threatened womens fertility only. The bacteria responsible for the disease, Chlamydia trachomatis can cause a womans fallopian tubes to become blocked or scarred, making it difficult or impossible to conceive a child.
A study published in 2004 involving Swedish couples seeking infertility treatment found that men with chlamydia infection were less likely to father a child. But researchers have lacked good evidence about why men with the disease develop fertility trouble and how to reverse the problem.
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Routine Testing: Warranted Or Not
The authors suggest this finding indicates that some other, not yet identified, cause may explain how past or persistent chlamydia infection among men could compromise their partners’ ability to get pregnant. They concluded that early infertility work-ups should include chlamydia antibody testing for both partners instead of just the woman, as is now the common practice.
But male infertility expert Larry Lipshultz, MD, tells WebMD that the study did not convince him that this change in clinical practice is warranted. Lipshultz is a professor of urology at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine.
“Based on this limited data, I would not be in favor of testing everybody for chlamydia,” he says. “The people in this study were not tested for other sexually transmitted diseases that could impact fertility, so it is not really clear if this was a cause-and-effect relationship.”
Chlamydia is easily treated with antibiotics, but it is not clear if treating antibody-positive infertile couples increases their likelihood of conceiving.
“This study raises some interesting questions, but it doesn’t really answer them,” Lipshultz says.
Does Chlamydia Feel Like A Uti
The symptoms Urinary tract infections and chlamydia can also cause pain in the lower abdomen or pelvic region. The main symptom that chlamydia does not share with UTIs is penile or vaginal discharge. A chlamydial infection can cause a yellowish, strong-smelling vaginal discharge or a watery, milky penile discharge.
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Facts About Mycoplasma Genitalium
- Read more…
In women it can cause vaginal discharge, inflammation in the urethra and cervix, and pelvic inflammatory disease, and can increase the risk of infertility. In some men the infection does not cause any symptoms but others can experience inflammation of the urethra, painful urination, and discharge from the penis. Mycoplasma genitalium can be effectively treated with antibiotics.
Chlamydia Can Harm Male Fertility
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Oct. 15, 2019 — Undiagnosed chlamydia infection can harm male fertility, a new study suggests.
“Chlamydia infection has been associated with women’s infertility but much less is known about its impact on male infertility, particularly if men do not experience symptoms, which is estimated to be in about 50% of cases,” said study leader Ken Beagley, a professor of immunology at Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
“When people have no symptoms, they can unknowingly pass on the infection to sexual partners,” Beagley added in a university news release .
The Australian research is the first to find the sexually transmitted disease in testicular tissue biopsies of infertile men with no identified cause for their infertility.
Chlamydia was found in fixed testicular biopsies from 43 of 95 men who had no defined cause of infertility.
Chlamydia was also found in 16.7% of fresh testicular biopsies with no identified cause of infertility. Twelve of those 18 had chlamydia-specific antibodies, indicating they’d been exposed to the bacteria, but none had symptoms of chlamydia or said they’d been diagnosed with any STI.
“This is the first reported evidence of chlamydia infection in human testicular tissue, and while it can’t be said that chlamydia was the cause of the infertility of the men, it is a significant finding,” Beagley said.
The study was published recently in the journal Human Reproduction.
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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.
If you have a penis, a chlamydia infection can spread to your epididymis if its left untreated, and can cause chronic joint pain. Rarely, it can make you infertile.
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.