What is Chlamydia ? Even with all the education and publicity that has been generated about sexually transmitted diseases many people still do not fully understand what chlamydia is and why it is so important to get it treated. Because chlamydia symptoms can range from no symptoms at all to mild or moderate symptoms many people may not bother to get tested and may in fact continue to pass this infection on to other partners while it silently does damage to their reproductive organs.

Chlamydia is a bacterial infection that is transmitted thru vaginal, anal or oral sex and can also cause a baby to be sick if passed from the mother to her child during birth. Penetrating sex is not necessary to contract chlamydia from your sexual partner; the only thing that is required is the passing of bodily fluids thru close physical contact.

What is Chlamydia
Chlamydia can live in the throat, rectum, urethra or cervix, and can be passed from partner to partner without either of them knowing it. Chlamydia symptoms usually do not show up until one to three weeks after the initial infection if they show up at all, further complicating in efforts to control the spread of this bacterial infection. In fact chlamydia is often called the silent STD because up to 75% of women and 50% of men will never have any symptoms of this infection.

Symptoms for women include painful and burning urination, painful intercourse, spotting between periods, abdominal pain, fever, and vaginal discharge. For men symptoms are much milder and include discharge from the penis, burning or painful urination, itching and burning around the opening of the penis, and swelling around the testicles.

Risk factors for chlamydia are considerable particularly for women and this is why it is important to understand what chlamydia is and have routine tests for chlamydia and other STD’s. Because it can be silent or extremely mild, chlamydia can cause serious damage to reproductive organs before you are even aware of its presence. Complications include pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and ectopic pregnancies. Woman who have untreated chlamydia are also five times more likely to contract HIV if exposed than a healthy woman is.

Complications in men are rare, but infection can spread into the epididymis and cause pain, fever and rarely even sterility. Other side effects of chlamydia include rare cases of skin lesions, arthritis, meningitis, and inflammation of the eyes.

Preventing chlamydia means abstaining from sexual contact unless with another partner in a committed and monogamous relationship where both of you have been tested free of sexual diseases. Understanding what chlamydia is will help you to know when to get tested and when to seek treatment should you get infected.