Chlamydia -causes, Symptoms,treatment

Causes of Chlamydia

Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium, Chlamydia trachomatis, which can damage a woman's reproductive organs. Even though symptoms of chlamydia are usually mild or absent, serious complications that cause irreversible damage, including infertility, can occur "silently" before a woman ever recognizes a problem. Chlamydia also can cause discharge from the penis of an infected man.

Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted disease caused by bacteria. You get it by having sex or sexual contact with someone who is infected. Both men and women can get it. Chlamydia usually doesn't cause symptoms. If it does, you might notice a burning feeling when you urinate or abnormal discharge from your vagina or penis.

Causes of Chlamydia
The bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis causes chlamydia. The condition most commonly spreads through sexual intercourse and other intimate contact between genitals and the rectal area. It's also possible for a mother to spread chlamydia to her child during delivery, causing pneumonia or a serious eye infection.From mother to child with passage of the child through the birth canal. Chlamydia can cause pneumonia or serious eye infections in a newborn, especially among children born to infected mothers in developing countries.

Symptoms of Chlamydia
If symptoms occur, they usually appear within 1 to 3 weeks after exposure. Studies report that 10 to 20 percent of sexually active female teens harbor chlamydial infections. In up to 75 percent of cases, the infection is clinically inapparent. As a result, the disease is often not diagnosed until complications develop.

Untreated chlamydia also can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which can affect the vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. In some cases PID has no symptoms, but often causes abdominal or lower back pain, painful urination, pain during intercourse, bleeding between menstrual periods, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, or fever.

Treatment of Chlamydia
Your sexual partner or partners also need treatment even though they may not have signs or symptoms. Otherwise, the infection can be passed back and forth. It's possible to be reinfected with chlamydia.

Medications
The doctor may prescribe a single-dose antibiotic, such as azithromycin (Zithromax), taken as a pill. On the other hand, the doctor may choose an antibiotic, such as doxycycline (Atridox, Bio-Tab), to be taken as a pill twice a day for a week. Up to 95% of people will be cured after one course of antibiotics.reatment of chlamydia involves antibiotics. A convenient single-dose therapy for chlamydia is 1 gm of azithromycin (Zithromax) by mouth. Alternative treatments are often used, however, because of the high cost of this medication. The most common alternative treatment is a 100 mg oral dose of doxycycline twice per day for 7 days.

Chlamydia is easy to treat with antibiotics. Your doctor may give you a single dose, or you may have to take antibiotics for several days. Your doctor may provide you with treatment for your partner as well, and may ask you to come back for a follow up.