Yes, you can often regain fertility after chlamydia if treated early, as antibiotics cure the infection and can improve sperm quality in men; however, if untreated, chlamydia can cause permanent damage like blocked fallopian tubes (scarring) in women, leading to infertility, but even then, options like IVF can help, while male fertility damage (sperm DNA damage) is often reversible with treatment.
Can Infertility from Chlamydia Be Reversed? While chlamydia is easily treatable when diagnosed early, infertility caused by this sexually transmitted disease is permanent. Infertility treatments are often necessary for women who want to become pregnant but are unable to do so due to previous chlamydia infection.
Chlamydia is a common STI that can cause infection among men and women. It can cause permanent damage to a woman's reproductive system. This can make it difficult or impossible to get pregnant later. Chlamydia can also cause a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy that occurs outside the womb).
Chlamydia can be cleared up with antibiotics in about a week or two. But don't stop taking your medication just because your symptoms improve. Ask your provider about what follow-up is needed to be sure your infection is gone after you've finished taking your medicine. Chlamydia infection can recur.
The effects of chlamydia on your health
PID may cause scar tissue to form inside your fallopian tubes. If your fallopian tubes become completely blocked with scar tissue, you may not be able to get pregnant without medical help.
Increased Risk of Fertility Issues
Chlamydia can eventually cause excessive damage and scarring to the fallopian tubes, ovaries, or testicles, all of which can contribute to a higher risk of infertility.
STDs are a group of more than 20 diseases that can cause specific health complications. When these infections are left untreated, there can be irreversible damage present often leading to infertility.
Gonorrhea and chlamydia, which are preventable, are the two STDs most likely to result in infertility because they can cause PID in women. This can inflame and scar the fallopian tubes, making it hard for sperm and eggs to find each other, blocking pregnancy.
Chlamydia can lay dormant for over 10 years without the carrier knowing, causing a low-grade infection. This is because chlamydia is a common asymptomatic (showing no symptoms while infected) STD, and most people are unaware if they are infected.
The upshot is that it's possible for some — not all — STDs to go away by themselves, but it's also possible for STDs to persist for months, years, or the rest of your life. If you could have been exposed to an STD, the best thing to do is get tested — not to hope that if you did get something, it'll just go away.
If left untreated, chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in people with a vagina and lead to chronic pain and infertility. In people with a penis, untreated chlamydia can cause pain and swelling in one or both testicles.
What other problems can chlamydia cause? In women, an untreated infection can spread to your uterus and fallopian tubes, causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID can cause permanent damage to your reproductive system. This can lead to long-term pelvic pain, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy.
Untreated, about 10-15% of women with chlamydia will develop PID. Chlamydia can also cause fallopian tube infection without any symptoms. PID and “silent” infection in the upper genital tract may cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues, which can lead to infertility.
Chlamydia trachomatis can be associated with:
How long it takes for chlamydia to cause permanent damage to your reproductive system is not known. Whether it affects your fertility depends on whether the infection spreads. The general rule is: The quicker you treat it, the better.
Although it might feel like it at first, it's important to remember that having an STI won't mean the end of your sex life and is nothing to be ashamed of. A concern for many people living with an STI, particularly when they are first diagnosed, is the stigma associated with them.
Deaths from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) often occur long after acute infection, making their incidence difficult to estimate. Some infections, such as syphilis, may directly result in death. By contrast, human papilloma virus (HPV), HIV, and hepatitis more commonly cause death because of secondary sequelae.
HPV is one of the most common STIs in the world: According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, 85% of people will have contracted at least one type of HPV in their lifetime. The biggest risk from HPV is cervical cancer. In fact, HPV causes more than 90% of all cervical cancers globally.
The only way to be certain that chlamydia is cured completely is by testing again. You might also be advised to take a test of cure if you have had trouble taking the treatment correctly. A second test will be most accurate 6 weeks after you've finished the treatment.
For women, one of the most serious complications from untreated chlamydia is pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 10–20% of women with untreated chlamydia and gonorrhea infections may develop PID.
Conclusions: A 3-day course of doxycycline appears to be as effective as a 7-day course of doxycycline for the treatment of uncomplicated chlamydia cervicitis.
Definitively, there is no way to 100% know if you have an STI unless you get tested. Therefore, if you are experiencing any concerning symptoms or are worried about your sexual health more generally, you should see your doctor as soon as possible.
The easiest STD (STI) to get is Human Papillomavirus (HPV), being the most common STI globally, with nearly all sexually active people contracting it at some point, spreading easily through skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal, or oral sex, often with no symptoms, and other very common ones include Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, bacterial infections also easily transmitted and sometimes asymptomatic.
Those that cause significant kidney disease are of viral origin. The primary VVD are HIV-1, HBV, and HCV.