Symptoms can occur within 2-14 days after infection. However, a person may have chlamydia for months, or even years, without knowing it.
While long-term problems in men are rare, some men with untreated chlamydia may develop epididymitis. This refers to inflammation in the epididymis, a coiled tube at the back of the testicles that is responsible for storing and carrying sperm.
Most people who have chlamydia don't notice any symptoms.
If you do get symptoms, these usually appear between 1 and 3 weeks after having unprotected sex with an infected person. For some people they don't develop until many months later. Sometimes the symptoms can disappear after a few days.
Men rarely have health problems from chlamydia. The infection can cause a fever and pain in the tubes attached to the testicles. This can, in rare cases, lead to infertility. Untreated chlamydia may also increase your chances of getting or giving HIV.
Anita Ravi, MD, MPH, MSHP, a practicing family physician in New York City, urges physicians to make STI screenings a routine part of patient care so as to help catch and treat chlamydia, which can have long term health repercussions if not treated. “You could have chlamydia for years and not know it,” Ravi says.
However, it is possible for symptoms to develop months or even years after infection, especially if you develop complications such as Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (in women) or epididymitis (in men). In many people, chlamydia never causes any symptoms.
On the other hand, if you don't get tested or don't see a healthcare provider for treatment, chlamydia can live in the body for weeks, months, or even years without being detected. This can lead to long-term complications, including infertility.
Late-stage chlamydia refers to an infection that has spread to other parts of the body. For example, it may have spread to the cervix (cervicitis), testicular tubes (epididymitis), eyes (conjunctivitis), or throat (pharyngitis), causing inflammation and pain.
Although chlamydia is highly contagious, it does not always transmit to a person's sexual partners. It is also possible to have a false-negative test result. Having more frequent sex with a partner who has chlamydia may increase a person's risk of contracting it.
Without medical intervention, a chlamydia infection can persist for years if gone unnoticed [1]. Fortunately, once diagnosed, a healthcare provider can provide patients with the right medication to treat the sexually transmitted infection (STI).
People get STDs by having sex with someone who has an STD. Once you are infected, you can infect someone else. Both gonorrhea and chlamydia often have no symptoms. Sometimes only one partner will have symptoms, even though both have the disease.
The majority of chlamydial infections in men do not cause any symptoms. You can get chlamydia in the urethra (inside the penis), rectum, or throat. You may not notice any symptoms.
Chlamydia is incredibly difficult to diagnose due to its symptomless nature for 70% of women and 50% of men. The only certain way to know that you have chlamydia is to get tested. If you do have symptoms then you will still need to be tested to effectively diagnose that the symptoms are caused by chlamydia.
Symptoms can develop within a few days or weeks, but sometimes they do not appear until months or even years later.
If left untreated, chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease in women, which can lead to chronic pain and infertility. In men, untreated chlamydia can cause pain and swelling in one or both testicles.
There is no clear timeline on how long it may take for this to occur - while one study suggests that after exposure to the bacteria, it can take a few weeks for PID to develop, the NHS estimates that 1 in 10 women with untreated chlamydia could go on to develop PID within a year.
Yes! Even if you're in a long-term, monogamous relationship, it's possible for you or your partner to have a previously undiagnosed and untreated STI.
It's quite another to learn you have an STI while you're in a monogamous relationship. If you have been totally faithful, you may assume that your partner acquired the infection while being unfaithful. Though it's possible they may have been intimate with someone else, it's also possible they never cheated at all.
Apart from being infected at birth you can not catch chlamydia without performing some form of sexual act. However, you don't have to have penetrative sex to get infected, it is enough if your genitals come in contact with an infected person's sexual fluids (for example if your genitals touch).
How Long Does It Take to Become Infertile From a Chlamydia Infection? There is no time for how long a chlamydia infection must remain in the system to cause infertility, because every body is different. It can take from weeks to two years.
Chlamydia is very common: it's the most frequently reported infectious disease in Australia, and nearly 97,000 men and women are diagnosed with it each year. If you're sexually active and under 30 years of age, you are at the highest risk of contracting chlamydia.
Yes, chlamydia can lie dormant in the body, causing a low-grade infection without symptoms.
The majority of people who have chlamydia aren't aware of any signs or symptoms, even after several months or years with infection. Nonetheless the impact of untreated chlamydia can be serious for women, causing significant damage to the reproductive organs.
Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the UK. In 2018 alone, 49% of all new diagnoses of STDs were Chlamydia. A possible reason for this is that the Chlamydia can lay dormant for many years without the carrier knowing.
The only way to properly check for the presence of this sexually-transmitted infection is through a laboratory test. A swab is taken from just inside the urethra in men or from the urethra or cervix in women, and then sent to a lab for identification.