A: Chlamydia is something you don’t want to “wait” on. It’s a bacterial infection easily spread from one sexual partner to another. If you have symptoms (discharge, bleeding, painful urination), seek treatment. Often there are no symptoms for up to 3 weeks, or never any at all. It can be diagnosed through a urine or swab test and if positive you’ll receive a treatment. If only one partner is getting treated the other can re-infect and cycle continues. That is why it is imperative that both partners take their entire treatments at the same time!

Even after a very long time of having an infection the treatment will clear it out. It’s never untreatable. However there can be some long term damage. As a man, untreated chlamydial infections can lead to prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate gland), urethral scarring, infertility, or epididymitis (inflammation of the cord-like structure at the back of the testes). There are as many health issues long-term untreated for women with chlamydia than for men, especially issues with their reproductive organs and fertility as a whole.