Chlamydia Symptoms

[foxla]

I recently experienced symptoms of chlamydia and/or gonorrhea and went to a local clinic for testing. I was given antibiotics and will find out the results in a week or so. I was instructed to take the chlamydia pills the first night and the gonorrhea pills a day later, I am fairly sure that it was chlamydia based on the improvement of symptoms after the first dose of antibiotics.

I have seen 6 different SP's in the last 4 months, 2 in the last 6 weeks. One of those 2 has become a regular for me. All vaginal sex has been protected, oral (both giving and receiving) was not. There was some minor unprotected genital contact with 4 of these women including the recent regular but contact was always limited to the lower half of my penis and the upper labia/pubic area of my partner, and very brief.

I have seen wildly varying information from various sources about the length of time it can take for symptoms to appear, if at all. I've read anything from a few days to 3 months or more for chlamydia. I'm trying to determine when I became infected and the conflicting information is making it difficult.

Why is there such a wide range of time stated at various sources? Is it possible for symptoms to appear after a period of dormancy?

 

[ranelari]

most likely due to the genital contact,
oral? possibly,

when did the symptoms start and what symptoms did you experience?

 

[foxla]

This was just over a week ago and I had mild pain on urination and some discharge was noticed a couple of mornings. Basically I am trying to determine if it is possible that I became infected before I started seeing my regular SP, 5-6 weeks prior to symptoms appearing. The differing times for symptoms to appear is confusing this question. I'm wondering if the infection can remain dormant with no symptoms for some time before making an appearance, especially since such a high percentage of those infected show no symptoms at all. Can people showing no symptoms for a month or two or more start to show symptoms later? or if they don't appear early on is it likely they will not appear at all?

I realize the genital contact was risky even though the tip of my penis was never in contact with any partner's genitals and I will be avoiding such contact in the future.

 

[Health Nurse]

I recently experienced symptoms of chlamydia and/or gonorrhea and went to a local clinic for testing. I was given antibiotics and will find out the results in a week or so. I was instructed to take the chlamydia pills the first night and the gonorrhea pills a day later, I am fairly sure that it was chlamydia based on the improvement of symptoms after the first dose of antibiotics.

I have seen 6 different SP's in the last 4 months, 2 in the last 6 weeks. One of those 2 has become a regular for me. All vaginal sex has been protected, oral (both giving and receiving) was not. There was some minor unprotected genital contact with 4 of these women including the recent regular but contact was always limited to the lower half of my penis and the upper labia/pubic area of my partner, and very brief.

I have seen wildly varying information from various sources about the length of time it can take for symptoms to appear, if at all. I've read anything from a few days to 3 months or more for chlamydia. I'm trying to determine when I became infected and the conflicting information is making it difficult.

Why is there such a wide range of time stated at various sources? Is it possible for symptoms to appear after a period of dormancy?

Hi foxla

Glad to hear that you are feeling better.

Its great that you went to the clinic for testing and treatment. From what you have described it seems like a sexually transmitted infection (STI) is the most common cause.

I know what you mean, for chlamydia I have seen many different incubation periods listed depending on what site or book you look in. Incubation period is just the time it takes for symptoms of a disease to show once someone is infected.

I think there is a few reasons for this.

The first one is that they cannot do experiments in people e.g. Take 100 people give them chlamydia and see what happens (this is a good thing). Given this they rely on peoples sexual history to work out when they could of become infected which leads to a certain error.

The second one is what you mentioned in regard to people not getting symptoms when they are infected with chlamydia. Most people do not get symptoms to chlamydia. Over the years I have seen a few people who had a sexual partner months ago and only just started getting symptoms for chlamydia. They probably had chlamydia for several months but for what ever reason just started getting symptoms for it.

Chlamydia can pass from oral, vaginal and rectal sex. Genital rubbing would only be a risk for chlamydia if you had some of their vaginal fluid touch the tip of your penis (urethra). People can still pass on chlamydia when they are having no symptoms to it.

Given this it can be tricky if not impossible to work out when you were infected. From what you have written about your sexual history, if it is chlamydia it is possible that it could have happened 4 months ago.

When we are following up chlamydia cases we generally ask that all partners you had in the 2 months before symptoms started, come in for testing and treatment. As people can still pass on chlamydia when they are not having symptoms it might be a good idea to notify everyone over the last 4 months. We can do this without mentioning your name. We also have a translation service if the SP's do not speak English.

Chlamydia can also be tricky because we know it can pass from a BBBJ but currently we have no way to test the throat for chlamydia when people come for testing.

Have a look at this link for more information about chlamydia.
http://sexualityandu.ca/adults/sti-1-2.aspx

Let us know if you want us to expand on a topic. Remember if you would like to ask me a personal question just send me a PM.

HN
www.healthnurse.wordpress.com
www.stiresource.com

 

[foxla]

Thank you for the response HN. Once the test results come back I will take this into account when it comes to contacting SP's I've been with.

Much appreciated.