Tag Archives: infections

STD Awareness: Is Chlamydia Bad?

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chlamydiaPerhaps your sexual partner has informed you that they have been diagnosed with chlamydia, and you need to get tested, too. Maybe you’ve been notified by the health department that you might have been exposed to chlamydia. And it’s possible that you barely know what chlamydia even is, let alone how much you should be worried about it.

Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) out there, especially among young people. It can be spread by oral, vaginal, and anal sex, particularly when condoms or dental dams were not used correctly or at all. It is often a “silent” infection, meaning that most people with chlamydia don’t experience symptoms — you can’t assume you don’t have it because you feel fine, and you can’t assume your partner doesn’t have it because they look fine. If you’re sexually active, the best way to protect yourself is to know your partner’s STD status and to practice safer sex.

Chlamydia increases risk for HIV, leads to fertility and pregnancy problems, and might increase cancer risk.

The good news about chlamydia is that it’s easy to cure — but first, you need to know you have it! And that’s why it’s important for sexually active people to receive regular STD screening. Left untreated, chlamydia can increase risk of acquiring HIV, can hurt fertility in both males and females, can be harmful during pregnancy, and might even increase risk for a certain type of cancer. So why let it wreak havoc on your body when you could just get tested and take a quick round of antibiotics?

To find out just how seriously you should take chlamydia, let’s answer a few common questions about it.

Can Chlamydia Increase HIV Risk?

Chlamydia does not cause HIV. Chlamydia is caused by a type of bacteria, while HIV is a virus that causes a fatal disease called AIDS. However, many STDs, including chlamydia, can increase risk for an HIV infection, meaning that someone with an untreated chlamydia infection is more likely to be infected with HIV if exposed to the virus. Continue reading →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 22: Expedited Partner Therapy for Chlamydia

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200373577-001Welcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl never knew about.

So, you got chlamydia. It happens. In fact, it happens to an estimated 2.86 million Americans every year, and is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the country.

After testing positive for chlamydia, you can receive extra antibiotics to hand-deliver to your partner.

Your infection didn’t come out of thin air — you got it from somewhere. Maybe you have a new sex partner who wasn’t tested and treated for any STDs before you got together. Perhaps you’re in a non-monogamous relationship. You also could have had it for a while before you found out about it, during which time a partner might have unknowingly caught it from you. One reason chlamydia can spread so easily — by vaginal, anal, or oral sex — is because it usually doesn’t come with symptoms. Amazingly, most people with chlamydia don’t know they have it unless they take an STD test to screen for it.

But the fact remains: You got chlamydia. Now what? Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Gonorrhea, Women, and the Pre-Antibiotic Era

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Penicillin, the first cure for gonorrhea, was developed for mass production in the 1940s.

Penicillin, the first reliable cure for gonorrhea, was mass produced in the 1940s.

It’s Women’s History Month, a time to reflect on the achievements of women worldwide — like Margaret Sanger, Rosalind Franklin, and Florence Nightingale, or contemporary heroes like Wangari Maathai. But it may also be a time to examine some of the sadder aspects of womanhood, including the increased burden gonorrhea imposes on women. While gonorrhea is no picnic for anyone, it wreaks the most havoc in female reproductive tracts. In fact, before antibiotics, gonorrhea was a leading cause of infertility — one 19th century physician attributed 90 percent of female infertility to gonorrhea. Not only that, but the effects of gonorrhea could seriously reduce a woman’s overall quality of life.

With gonorrhea becoming more resistant to antibiotics, the CDC warns of a return to the pre-antibiotic era.

Gonorrhea is described by written records dating back hundreds of years B.C. Ancient Greeks treated it with cold baths, massage, “cooling” foods, and vinegar. In the Middle Ages, Persians might have recommended sleeping in a cool bed with a metal plate over the groin. A bit to the west, Arabs tried to cure gonorrhea with injections of vinegar into the urethra. Kings of medieval England might have had their gonorrhea treated with injections of breast milk, almond milk, sugar, and violet oil.

Although gonorrhea is as ancient an STD as they come, because women rarely have symptoms while men usually do, for much of history it was mostly discussed in terms of men. The name gonorrhea itself derives from the ancient Greek words for “seed flow” — gonorrhea was thought to be characterized by the leakage of semen from the penis. This confusion inspired many misguided notions throughout the millennia, such as the idea that almost all women carried gonorrhea and transmitted it to their unwitting male partners. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Chlamydia trachomatis

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A colony of C. trachomatis (colored green) is nestled inside a human cell. Image: V. Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

A colony of C. trachomatis (colored green) is nestled inside a human cell. Image: V. Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

In the microscopic world of germs, organisms called Chlamydiae are dwarfed by their fellow bacteria. An E. coli bacterium can hang out with 100,000 of its closest friends on the head of a pin, but Chlamydiae are smaller still. Infectious particles are about one-tenth the length of an E. coli, rivaling the size of a large virus. And, just like a virus, Chlamydiae can still pack quite a punch, proving that sometimes, not-so-good things can come in small packages.

There are many types of Chlamydiae bacteria, but one species, Chlamydia trachomatis, is responsible for not one, but two sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in humans: chlamydia and lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV). (Humans aren’t the only ones affected by sexually transmitted Chlamydiae. A different species, Chlamydia pecorum, is devastating wild koalas in Australia, which has got to be one of the biggest bummers ever.)

Chlamydia is a case study for the importance of safer sex and regular STD testing.

Chlamydia is one of the most common STDs in the United States — there were almost 1.5 million diagnoses in 2011 alone, but experts estimate that there were around another 1.5 million cases of chlamydia that went undiagnosed. How can this be? Chlamydia is often a “silent” infection, meaning that symptoms are rare, allowing people to harbor these bacteria without even knowing it. (When symptoms do occur, they might include swelling in the genital region; vaginal, cervical, or penile discharge; or painful urination.)

It might seem like a small mercy that this common infection is unlikely to torture us with harrowing symptoms — but, in actuality, those of us who have to deal with discharge or burning urination should try to appreciate the heads up: Left untreated, chlamydia can cause serious complications. When it spreads along the female reproductive tract, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can severely compromise fertility and cause chronic pain. Rarely, in a male reproductive tract, it can cause epididymitis, which can also spell bad news for future fertility. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: “Can STDs Lead to Infertility?”

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Being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) can be upsetting. Some take it as evidence that they’ve been cheated on; others wonder if they can ever have sex again. Some people who have long dreamed of having children might worry about what impact, if any, their STD could have on future fertility. The bad news is that certain STDs can make it difficult or impossible to have children. But the good news is that STDs are avoidable — and regular STD screening can ensure that infections are caught and treated before they have time to do damage.

It’s common for STDs not to have symptoms, and infections can cause tissue damage — unbeknownst to you!

Fertility can be impacted in several ways. The ability to become pregnant and bear children can be affected by a condition called pelvic inflammatory disease, which is usually caused by untreated gonorrhea or chlamydia infections. If you have a cervix, an infection with a high-risk strain of HPV can require invasive treatment, which in some cases might affect the ability to carry a pregnancy. If you have a penis, an untreated STD might lead to epididymitis, which in extreme cases can cause infertility.

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)

Many sexually transmitted infections are localized; for example, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea usually just hang out on the cervix. But untreated infections can spread on their own, and bacteria can also hitch a ride on sperm or the upward flow of a douche, which can take them into the cervix, through the uterus, down the fallopian tubes, and to the ovaries. At any of these locations, microbes can stake claim on your reproductive real estate, establishing colonies deep in your reproductive system. As these colonies grow, the bacterial infections become more widespread, and can cause scarring and other tissue damage. To keep these interlopers from getting through the front door, sexually active people can use barrier methods, such as latex condoms — especially with spermicides. There’s no need to host an open house for sexually transmitted bacteria in your uterus. Continue reading →