If you take the treatment according to the instructions, you won't usually need a test to check the chlamydia has gone. If you're aged under 25, you should be offered a repeat test 3 months after finishing the treatment. This is because you're at a higher risk of getting chlamydia again.
Chlamydia is a bacterial infection (like strep throat or an ear infection), which means that once you've been treated and tested negative for it (to make sure the antibiotics worked), it's gone.
It takes 7 days for the medicine to work in your body and cure Chlamydia infection. If you have sex without a condom during the 7 days after taking the medicine, you could still pass the infection to your sex partners, even if you have no symptoms.
Effects of chlamydia treatment
Generally, most symptoms should resolve completely within 2–4 weeks. If any symptoms persist, such as pelvic pain or pain during sex, please return to the clinic as further treatment or investigations may be necessary.
If nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) are used, patients should not be retested less than three weeks post-treatment, due to the risk of false-positive test results. In general, a test-of-cure is not recommended for non-pregnant patients who received first-line therapies.
Any person who has a positive test for chlamydia or gonorrhea, along with women who have a positive test for trichomonas, should be rescreened 3 months after treatment.
It takes seven days for the medicine to cure chlamydia. If you have sex during those first seven days you can still pass the infection on to your sex partners and you can also get re-infected yourself.
In most cases infections found on retesting are new infections, transmitted by either an untreated prior partner or an infected new partner. Retesting a few months after diagnosis and treatment of chlamydia can detect repeat infection for earlier treatment to prevent complications and further transmission.
Your doctor will usually review you after 4 to 6 weeks to check how well the medicine is working. If you're taking doxycycline for any other infection, tell your doctor if you do not start feeling better after 3 days. Also tell them if, at any time, you start to feel worse.
You can get chlamydia even after treatment. You may get it again for several reasons, including: You did not complete your course of antibiotics as directed and the initial chlamydia did not go away. Your sexual partner has untreated chlamydia and gave it to you during sexual activity.
Chlamydial infection occasionally persists due to treatment failure, but repeat positivity upon retesting is most often due to reinfection from an untreated sexual partner or an infected new partner [4, 5].
A repeat test can be done 5–6 weeks after the first test. If the chlamydia was in your rectum (back passage), you may need another test around 3 weeks after finishing the treatment. Your doctor, nurse or clinic will let you know if you need another test.
If you're being treated for chlamydia, it's important to avoid sex until 7 days after finishing your medicine. This gives your body time to clear up the infection completely to make sure it doesn't get passed on to anyone.
Doxycycline starts working in as little as 2 hours after taking it. But depending on the infection you have, it may take up to 24 to 48 hours (1 to 2 days) to start seeing its effects. It typically takes 1 to 2 weeks for doxycycline to fully clear an infection, but some infections can take as long as 2 months.
Remember, most common side effects of doxycycline will get better soon after you stop taking it: Symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea should get better within a few days of stopping doxycycline. Sun sensitivity can last for about 10-14 days after you stop taking it.
How is chlamydia diagnosed? Diagnose chlamydia with nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs), cell culture, and other types of tests. NAATs are the most sensitive tests to use on easy-to-obtain specimens. This includes vaginal swabs (either clinician- or patient-collected) or urine.
It is highly unlikely for chlamydia to go away on its own. Although the symptoms may subside temporarily, the infection may persist in the body in the absence of treatment (subclinical infection). It is important to seek diagnosis and timely treatment to get rid of the infection.
With the chlamydia/gonorrhea test, there is also the small chance of the person having a false positive test result. For example, the chlamydia test is positive but you actually do not have chlamydia.
Chlamydia can usually be effectively treated with antibiotics. More than 95% of people will be cured if they take their antibiotics correctly.
Chlamydial reinfections are very common—as many as 1 in 5 people will have a repeat infection with chlamydia within the first few months after they are treated for their initial infection.
In some cases, a person may also have a false-negative test result. This can happen if they test too soon after exposure. For example, if a person tests the day after sex with a partner who has chlamydia, the bacteria may not have had the chance to grow to detectable levels.
The most common way to get false negative chlamydia and gonorrhea tests would be from testing too soon after you had sex or by urinating too soon if testing with the urine test. With gonorrhea, most results are accurate after 7 days. With chlamydia, most results are accurate after 2 weeks but it can take up to 6 weeks.
A repeat test can be done 5–6 weeks after the first test. If the chlamydia was in your rectum (back passage), you may need another test around 3 weeks after finishing the treatment. Your doctor, nurse or clinic will let you know if you need another test.
Persons with chlamydia should abstain from sexual activity for 7 days after single dose antibiotics or until completion of a 7-day course of antibiotics, to prevent spreading the infection to partners. It is important to take all of the medication prescribed to cure chlamydia.