Chlamydia is the cause of a number of serious infections and GC (N.Gonorrhea coexists in a significant proportion of pts with chlamydial infection. Anyone who knows what they're doing tests the pt. with suspected or confirmed Chlamydia for GC or they miss it and it can cause a significant number of sterile patients in females by infecting and scarring the tubes, causing a significant incidence of infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic significant pelvic pain.
I don't know where you got Chlamydia, and maybe you don't but in one large study it persisted in 46-57% of patients.
One study of women who were given antibiotics (and the idea of "huge dose" immediately IDs someone who is an amateur with no real clinical experience or understanding of infectious disease because antibiotic treatment is not about huge doses. It's about being specific and using a mean inhibitory concentration of the antibiotic to achieve clinical efficacy. Huge doses waste money, and maximize the chance for resistance, and side effects of antibiotics like diarrhea to name a frequent one.
Women treated with antibiotics that didn't cure their Chlamydia showed a 30% incidence of PID in 7 weeks in another large series.
Among the significant or serious infections that Chlamydia causes in sizable numbers is:
Cervicitis which is almost always asymptomatic, (but when symptoms are present they are nonspecific and can be confused with vaginitis or endometritis) which can rapidly ascend to the tubes to cause PID (nicknamed by med students as "pussy in distress" because it almost always has significant abdominal cramping and rebound tenderness but standing for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and when cervicitis is symptomatic if you put 2 fingers under the cervix and pull upwards during a pelvic exam the pain is exquisite "the chandelier sign" (and symbolized by the lady reaching for the chandelier).
Perihepititis so called Fitzhugh-Curtis Sundrome--inflammation of the liver and the peritoneum (the membrane covering abdominal organs and the abdomen) and it is highly painful and can cause adhesions which are the leading cause of bowel obstruction.
Increased risk for births of premature infants, miscarriage and perinatal death
Proctitis in men and women
Epidididymitis which can be chronic and sometimes difficult to treat
Prostatitis which can cause pain on ejaculation and pelvic pain (in both sexes)
Reactive Arthritis in 1% of men
Conjunctivitis
LGV
Rarely Chlamydial Endocarditis where ring abcesses form on the mitral and aortic valves>impair the ejection of blood from the heart, cause backup and heart failure, and when that infection extends to the endocardium the heart can rupture causing the patient to bleed out into the pericardium>squeeze the heart and cause death in as quick as a few hours.
So to consider Chlamydia "no big deal" IDs someone as not trained in clinical medicine.
Obviously the goal of treatment is to prevent the complications I outlined above and spread to other people and babies at delivery.
83% of symptomatic patients with cervicitis or urethritis improve within 2 weeks of being started on doxycycline (tetracycline) 100mg. BID X 7 days or azithromycin 1 gm single dose (a newer and more expensive macrolide antibiotic related to erythromycin). These are the 2 first line agents used to treat it.
You can also use quinolones.
When testing for Gonorrhea which is a frequent coinfection is positive, then a single IM injection of Ceftriaxone 250mg (Rocephin) cures most of them.
25% of pts. will have adverse side effects from their antibiotic regimen (diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and dyspepsia, but none are serious)
