Symptoms can occur within 2-14 days after infection. However, a person may have chlamydia for months, or even years, without knowing it.
Chlamydia can lie dormant for months or years and it is often detected through screening and routine sexual health testing. If symptoms do develop, it usually takes 1-3 weeks after exposure to notice signs.
“You could have chlamydia for years and not know it,” Ravi says. “That's one of the scariest parts about it-people will say 'I haven't had sex in a long time' and I have to explain that they won't always have symptoms.”
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).
Late-stage chlamydia refers to an infection that has spread to other parts of the body. For example, it may have spread to the cervix (cervicitis), testicular tubes (epididymitis), eyes (conjunctivitis), or throat (pharyngitis), causing inflammation and pain.
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.
Chlamydia Dormancy Facts
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.
However, a person may have chlamydia for months, or even years, without knowing it.
Most people who have chlamydia don't know it. Often the disease has no symptoms. You can pass chlamydia to others without knowing it.
Yes, Chlamydia can be dormant in the body for several years without any flare-up to trigger a symptomatic infection. This means a person could live with Chlamydia for many years without knowing because the typical symptoms don't appear.
Symptoms can develop within a few days or weeks, but sometimes they do not appear until months or even years later.
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.
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.
Without medical intervention, a chlamydia infection can persist for years if gone unnoticed [1].
Chlamydia rarely goes away by itself. In fact, it can cause some serious health problems if left untreated in both men and women. Thankfully, chlamydia is curable! All you need is a short course of antibiotics.
Some refer to chlamydia as a “silent” infection. This is because most people with the infection have no symptoms or abnormal physical exam findings.
This is because the bacteria needs enough time to multiply within your body in order for it to reach a detectable level when taking a chlamydia test. For chlamydia this is often 14 days. If you test before that 14 days is over, you may test negative, but you could still pass the bacteria on following your test.
Yes. Chlamydia can be cured by taking a course of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor. You must take the antibiotics as directed and avoid having sex during treatment to cure the chlamydia infection completely.
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.
What happens if chlamydia is untreated? If you're not treated for chlamydia, you may have some serious complications. In women, the untreated chlamydia infection may spread to your fallopian tubes or uterus. This may cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
How did I get chlamydia if I didn't cheat? You can get chlamydia if your partner had vaginal, oral or anal sex with someone who was infected and then had sex with you.
Can you develop a chlamydia infection on your own? Fortunately, you can't contract chlamydia on your own because it spreads through sexual contact with other people. Chlamydia bacteria does, however, thrive in vaginal fluid, semen, and pre-ejaculate (the fluids that the penis may release before sexual climax).
If one partner tests positive for chlamydia and the other does not, there are a few possible explanations: The positive test result could be incorrect. The negative test result could be incorrect. The chlamydia might not have transmitted from the person to their partner.
However if the infection is left untreated in women it can spread into the uterus or fallopian tubes and cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). Pelvic inflammatory disease can result in serious complications, including infertility, ectopic pregnancy and long-term abdominal pain.