STD CHLAMYDIA: TREATMENT
Chlamydia is completely treatable with antibiotics, but the consequences of the disease, such as scarring, may not be treatable. The antibiotics most commonly used for uncomplicated genital chlamydia infections in men and women are doxycycline, ofloxacin, and erythromycin (which are taken for a week) and azithromycin (which is taken as a single dose by mouth). Azithromycin may be the best choice for some people in the long run, since many do not take the full week-long course of the medication, and as a result do not receive adequate treatment and can still have infection and complications later. A medication that treats the infection with just a single dose can avoid this problem. However, it is important to abstain from sex for a full week after taking the single-dose treatment of azithromycin, because it stays in the system for quite a while (actually up to a week) and is actively treating the infection during that time. Resuming sexual activity sooner than this can reinfect partners.
It is especially important for someone being treated for sexually transmitted infections to take the medication as prescribed and take all of it. If a woman with infection is found to have PID from chlamydia, or a man is found to have infection of the epididymis or prostate from chlamydia, then a longer course of antibiotics must be used (see the specific entries for these STDs).
Any partners within the past two months should also be treated as contacts to infection, even if they do not have symptoms or evidence of infection on examination. Talk with your health care provider about whether you need to follow up after treatment to make sure the infection is gone. In most cases, it is not necessary. However, pregnant women should always have a follow-up test to make sure the treatment for chlamydia has been effective. Erythromycin is the medication best suited for the treatment of chlamydia during pregnancy; the others may be harmful to an unborn child.
It is best to wait about four weeks after finishing treatment to test whether the infection has, cleared. Killed bacteria may show up on testing up to a month after treatment, which would falsely indicate infection. After four weeks, a continued positive chlamydia test demonstrates persistent, untreated infection, which could possibly be due to reinfection.
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Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health