What are the symptoms? Symptoms can occur within 2-14 days after infection. However, a person may have chlamydia for months, or even years, without knowing it.
Although some symptoms can appear within weeks of contact, there have been reports of chlamydia remaining dormant for over twenty years. If you have had recent sexual contact and wonder about chlamydia infections, don't hesitate to test.
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.
Leaving a chlamydia infection untreated for years increases the risk of developing serious complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and further infections. For women, PID can cause: scar tissue that blocks fallopian tubes. ectopic pregnancy.
Chlamydia often has no symptoms, but it can cause serious health problems, even without symptoms. If symptoms occur, they may not appear until several weeks after having sex with a partner who has chlamydia.
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.
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).
How long can you have chlamydia for? An untreated chlamydia infection can persist for several years. Although this goes for both men and women, it is believed that men are less likely to carry the bacteria for several years. If you remain infected for a long time you have an increased risk of complications.
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.
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.
As most people do not have symptoms, it is possible the person (who tested positive) could have had chlamydia/gonorrhea from a previous relationship, and has not passed it to their partner yet. It is never 100% that you will pass an STI when you have sex.
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. If detected early, chlamydia may be treated with a single dose of antibiotics.
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.
What are the symptoms? Symptoms can occur within 2-14 days after infection. However, a person may have chlamydia for months, or even years, without knowing it.
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.
Yes, chlamydia can lie dormant in the body, causing a low-grade infection without symptoms.
Chlamydia can be cured with antibiotics from a health care provider. However, if chlamydia is left untreated, it can cause permanent damage. Your risk of getting other STIs, like gonorrhea or HIV, increases. In males, untreated chlamydia can lead to sterility (inability to make sperm).
Your Test Results
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. That's why notifying your sexual partners about the results of your test is important.
Often the disease has no symptoms. You can pass chlamydia to others without knowing it. Chlamydia is easy to treat and cure. If you do not treat chlamydia, it can lead to serious health problems.
More than one in 25 young people aged between 15-29 in Australia had chlamydia during 2021 but less than a third of those young people received a chlamydia diagnosis.
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 your partner has gonorrhea or chlamydia, is it possible to have unprotected sex and not get these infections? While it is possible to have vaginal, oral, or anal sex with an infected partner and not get infected, it's unlikely.