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Ask Dr. Hennessy What is Chlamydia? Chlamydia is a disease that you can get from having sex. It is a bacteria and it can be treated. The trick to treatment, however, is that you have to see a doctor or go to the health department to get tested. Chlamydia is very common. In fact, it is the most common sexually-transmitted disease that I treat in my office. Often times, the guys and girls that I treat did not have any idea that they had this disease. Nation-wide, three-fourths of women and half of men who have chlamydia don't even have symptoms. So here is my plea to all of you....if you have sex, then PLEASE, PLEASE see a doctor ever year to test for this and other diseases. Ok, have I convinced you yet? Well, let me give you more information on chlamydia. As I said, chlamydia is a bacteria. It passes to and from the vagina, the anus, the penis, and even from the mouth of infected people during sex. It can also pass from a mother to her baby during childbirth. The symptoms can include pain when you pee for both men and women. We call that dysuria. It can cause discharge from the penis or the vagina. Discharge is a fancy word for abnormal, cloudy liquid that can be leaking from the penis or vagina. You often don't feel it leaking but my noticed weird discharge in your underwear. Girls may have stomach pain, back pain, or fever. Guys may have pain and swelling in their testicles (the "balls"). With chlamydia infection, you may feel pain when you have sex when normally you do not have pain with sex. Chlamydia can also cause bleeding from your anus (your butt) if you have anal sex or a sore throat if you have oral sex. Remember, however, many people have no symptoms at all. Babies that are born to moms with chlamydia can get eye infections that can lead to blindness. Babies can also get pneumonia with chlamydia. All pregnant women are tested for chlamydia. So what happens if you don't treat it? Well, for one thing you can continue to spread it to others. For females, the infection can spread to your uterus (your womb) or to your fallopian tubes. This can set up females for a very serious disease which can make you very sick. This type of infection is known as Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. It may require you to stay in the hospital for treatment. In addition, it can cause scarring of the female organs which may make it difficult or impossible for you to have kids one day or it may cause long-term pain. This scarring can also lead to an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy in the fallopian tube and can be life-threatening. For males, it may also cause them to become infertile, which means that they may not be able to have kids of their own one day. So how do you know if you have it? You need to see a doctor. If you have symptoms like I described above then obviously see a doctor. In the meantime if you are having these symptoms, then make sure that you stop having sex until you are treated. If, however, you are not having symptoms but you do have sex or have had sex then I recommend that you see a doctor every year. The test for chlamydia can be as easy as just peeing in a cup and the results are back in a couple of days. For some people, however, your doctor may want to do a more complete exam of your genitalia to check for other diseases. If you have one disease from having sex then you still can have another sexually-transmitted disease. Most females who are sexually-active will get a pelvic exam regularly. During a pelvic exam, the doctor looks into the vagina and can see the cervix ( the cervix is part of the uterus). A cotton swab may be used to take a sample to test for chlamydia at that time. The cotton swab does not hurt. Remember most people that have chlamydia don't know it so get the test. Now for treatment. If it is just chlamydia, often the doctor can give you a pill to take. It is that simple. If it more serious, like the pelvic inflammatory disease that I discussed above, then you may have to get antibiotics in the hospital. We usually want to see you back again to make sure that you have cleared the infection. That recheck visit usually means that you have to do the easy pee test. If you have symptoms then you may need another exam. Furthermore, if you have chlamydia then you need to tell your partner so that he or she can be treated too. I often see patients who continue to test positive for chlamydia because they don't tell their sex partners. Then their sex partners don't get treated and they spread the infection back to my patients. You need to tell your partner or partners so they get treated too. The health department can help you with this. After treatment for chlamydia, you should not have sex again until at least seven days after you finish your treatment and your partner has also been treated. Is there any way to prevent yourself from getting chlamydia? Well, the easiest way is not to have sex but you already knew that. Condoms will help prevent the spread. They should be used every time that you have sex. Even though condoms are good, remember that they are still not 100%. Also remember, you can't tell that a person has chlamydia just by looking at them. Stay tuned for next month when I discuss gonorrhea. For other Ask Dr. Hennessy articles, click here Email: Margaret.Hennessy@wfhc.org |