How Long Does Doxycycline Take To Work

Doxycycline starts working in as little as 2 hours after taking it. But depending on the infection you have, it may take up to 24 to 48 hours (1 to 2 days) to start seeing its effects. It typically takes 1 to 2 weeks for doxycycline to fully clear an infection, but some infections can take as long as 2 months.

How do I know if doxycycline is working?

How does doxycycline work? Doxycycline is from a group of medicines called tetracycline antibiotics, These antibiotics work by killing bacteria by stopping them from making the proteins that they need to survive. For conditions like rosacea, doxycycline is used to make the skin less inflamed.

When will I feel better? With most infections, you’ll usually feel better within a few days. When you do, it’s important to keep taking doxycycline until you finish your medicine. Taking all your medicine will help stop the infection coming back. What if I do not get better? If you have rosacea, doxycycline works slowly to treat it.

Your doctor will usually review you after 4 to 6 weeks to check how well the medicine is working. If you’re taking doxycycline for any other infection, tell your doctor if you do not start feeling better after 3 days. Also tell them if, at any time, you start to feel worse.

If you are taking doxycycline to prevent malaria, you will not feel any different. Take doxycycline as prescribed, and continue taking it for 4 weeks after leaving the area where there is malaria. Will it give me thrush? Some people get a fungal infection called thrush after taking a course of antibiotics like doxycycline.

This is because the antibiotics kill the normal harmless bacteria that help protect you against thrush. If this happens to you, ask your pharmacist or doctor for advice. Does it stain teeth? Doxycycline can build up in growing bones and teeth by sticking to calcium – this can stain teeth.

Because this only happens in growing bones and teeth, it’s not usually given to young children, during pregnancy, or when breastfeeding. Can I take doxycycline if I’m allergic to penicillin? Yes, you can take doxycycline if you are allergic to penicillin. They are different types of antibiotic. I’m taking doxycycline to prevent malaria while in a hot country, is it better to use another medicine so I do not react to sunlight? Doxycycline has been used successfully in hot countries for many years.

The best way to protect yourself against a reaction to sunlight is to be careful when out in the sun – wear clothes that cover you up, a hat and sunglasses. Use a high factor (at least SPF 30) sunscreen or sunblock on your skin. Speak to your doctor of pharmacist if you have any questions about this.

1. Will it affect my contraception? Doxycycline does not affect any type of contraception, including the combined pill and emergency contraception,
2. However, if doxycycline makes you sick (vomit) or have severe diarrhoea for more than 24 hours, your combined pill may not protect you from pregnancy.
3. Check the pill packet to find out what to do.

Find out more about what to do if you’re on the pill and you’re being sick or have diarrhoea, Can I drink alcohol while taking doxycycline? It’s best not to drink alcohol with doxycycline because it can stop it working properly. Speak to your doctor or pharmacist if you have questions about this.

How long does it take for doxycycline to work for acne?

Like other acne treatments, doxycycline needs some time to start working. Acne might start improving within 2 weeks, but it can take up to 12 weeks (3 months) to see the full benefit of the treatment. You’ll know doxycycline is working for you when you see less acne forming and your skin starts to look clearer.

Does doxycycline 100% cure chlamydia?

Conclusions. In the context of a closed population receiving directly observed treatment for urogenital chlamydia infection, the efficacy of azithromycin was 97%, and the efficacy of doxycycline was 100%.

How quickly does doxycycline treat chlamydia?

How does Doxycycline treat chlamydia? – Antibiotics work against bacteria. For their own survival and reproduction, bacteria need to produce certain proteins. Doxycycline works by entering the bacteria cells and blocking the production of these proteins.

1. When taken correctly, Doxycycline is effective at fighting bacterial infections like Chlamydia in 95% of cases,
2. To make sure that you take it correctly, it’s important to complete the treatment by taking every single dose on time as prescribed.
3. In order to successfully treat chlamydia, doxycycline must be taken twice a day for 7 days.

The capsules must be swallowed with water in the morning and in the evening, and can be taken with or without food. Although Doxycycline is effective at fighting off existing bacterial infections in your body, it does not protect you from getting them again.

Can I drink alcohol on doxycycline?

An occasional drink or two while taking doxycycline is usually fine, but people who drink heavily may want to choose a different antibiotic. Heavy drinking could make doxycycline less effective. Doxycycline is an antibiotic that’s used to treat a variety of bacterial infections, including respiratory and skin infections.

• It’s also used to prevent malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that’s caused by a parasite.
• There are different types, known as classes, of antibiotics.
• Doxycycline is in the tetracycline class, which interferes with bacteria’s ability to make proteins.
• This prevents bacteria from growing and thriving.
• Alcohol can interact with several antibiotics, including doxycycline in some cases.

Doxycycline can interact with alcohol in people with a history of chronic drinking or heavy alcohol use. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, this condition is defined as more than 4 drinks a day for men and more than three drinks a day for women.

Doxycycline can also interact with alcohol in people with liver problems. In these two groups of people, drinking alcohol while taking doxycycline can make the antibiotic less effective. But if you’re taking doxycycline and don’t have these risks, you should be fine to have a drink or two without reducing the effectiveness of the antibiotic.

Some antibiotics, such as metronidazole and tinidazole, have serious interactions with alcohol that can result in a range of side effects including:

dizzinessdrowsinessstomach issuesnauseavomitingheadacherapid heart rate

Having one or two alcoholic drinks while taking doxycycline shouldn’t cause any of these effects. But if you’re still getting over an infection, it’s best to avoid drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol, especially heavily, is linked to decreased functioning of your immune system.

dizzinessdrowsinessupset stomach

Mixing doxycycline and alcohol won’t cause any serious health issues. But drinking enough alcohol to get to the point of feeling drunk can affect your recovery. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, getting drunk can slow your body’s immune response for up to 24 hours,

antacids anticoagulants barbituratesbismuth subsalicylate, an active ingredient in medications such as Pepto-Bismol anticonvulsants, such as carbamazepine and phenytoin diuretics lithiummethotrexateproton pump inhibitorsretinoidsvitamin A supplements

Tetracycline antibiotics, including doxycycline, can also make you more sensitive to sunlight, Make sure to wear protective clothing and apply plenty of sunscreen when going outside to avoid getting sunburned. Pregnant women, women who are nursing, and children under age 8 shouldn’t take doxycycline.

• Doxycycline is an antibiotic used to treat a range of bacterial infections.
• While drinking alcohol while taking certain antibiotics can be risky, it’s generally safe to occasionally consume alcohol while taking doxycycline.
• However, if a person is a chronic drinker, has a liver condition, or is taking multiple medications, alcohol should be avoided while taking doxycycline.

Keep in mind that alcohol can slow down your body’s immune response. If you do choose to drink while taking doxycycline, you may be adding another day onto your recovery from the underlying infection.

When does doxycycline reach its peak?

PHARMACOKINETICS – Compared with tetracycline, doxycycline has a longer half-life, better absorption, and a better safety profile ( Shapiro et al., 1997 ; Thillainayagamam and Ramaiah, 2016 ). An oral dose of 100–200 mg of doxycycline is almost completely absorbed in the small bowel and is detectable in the blood 15–30 minutes after administration ( Tan et al., 2011 ).

Doxycycline is highly protein bound (93%), has a small volume of distribution (0.7 L/kg), and achieves relatively high blood levels ( Schlagenhauf et al., 2019 ). Following a 200 mg oral dose of doxycycline, peak concentrations of about 2.6 μg/mL are reached at approximately 2 hours, but this may vary as gastrointestinal absorption rates differ among individuals.

Doxycycline is readily transported across cell membranes, resulting in widespread distribution in body tissues and fluids. It localizes in the bone marrow, liver, and spleen; crosses the placenta; and is excreted in breast milk. Doxycycline and other tetracyclines form tetracycline-calcium orthophosphate complexes in sites of calcification such as developing teeth and bone, which may lead to permanent discoloration.

• The bioavailability of the monohydrate free base and of the hydrochloride salt (hyclate) forms of doxycycline has been shown to be equivalent ( Tan et al., 2011 ).
• Studies have shown that when medications composed of divalent or trivalent cations (such as antacids, laxatives, and oral iron preparations) are taken simultaneously with doxycycline, the absorption of doxycycline is decreased.

Other types of medications that decrease the absorption of tetracyclines include antidiarrheal agents containing kaolin, pectin, or bismuth subsalicylate; these should be taken a few hours before ingesting doxycycline ( Tan et al., 2011 ). Milk decreases the absorption of tetracyclines because of chelation of the calcium in the milk by the tetracyclines; however, the magnitude of this decrease varies between different tetracycline preparations, and the data for doxycycline are limited.

• According to FDA, the absorption of doxycycline “is not markedly influenced by simultaneous ingestion of food and milk,” despite the reduced absorption observed with other tetracyclines, and taking doxycycline with food is recommended to prevent concurrent adverse gastrointestinal events.
• Unlike the case with other tetracyclines, the excretion of doxycycline occurs primarily by the gastrointestinal tract and to a much lesser extent by the kidneys.

The serum half-life of doxycycline (15–25 hours) is not affected by impaired renal function or hemodialysis, and in patients with renal failure all excretion of doxycycline occurs by the gastrointestinal route. There are limited to no data on sex, age, body weight, or race differences in the pharmacokinetics of doxycycline ( Tan et al., 2011 ).

What STD is treated with doxycycline?

NIH-funded study finds doxycycline reduces sexually transmitted infections by two-thirds News Release Thursday, April 6, 2023 The oral antibiotic doxycycline prevented the acquisition of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when tested among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women who took the medication within 72 hours of having condomless sex, according to findings published today in the New England Journal of Medicine,

Specifically, the post-exposure approach, termed doxy-PEP, resulted in a two-thirds reduction in the incidence of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia among the study participants, all of whom reported having an STI within the previous year. However, the research also revealed a slight increase in antibacterial resistance that requires further exploration, the authors found.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. “Effective methods for preventing sexually transmitted infections are badly needed,” said Hugh Auchincloss, M.D., NIAID acting director.

This is an encouraging finding that could help reduce the number of sexually transmitted infections in populations most at-risk.” STI incidence has been increasing in the United States over the past few years with a disproportionate impact among MSM and transgender women. An estimated 2.5 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia occurred in 2021 up from 2.4 million cases in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If left untreated, STIs can lead to serious health consequences, including brain and nerve problems, blindness, infertility and increased risk of HIV acquisition. Antimicrobial resistance among STIs is an emerging public health threat, particularly with Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and threatens available treatment options.

The study was led by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Washington, Seattle. It enrolled 501 adults at four clinic sites in San Francisco and Seattle who were at least 18 years of age; assigned male sex at birth; reported sexual activity with a man in the previous year; diagnosed with HIV or taking or planning to take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication to prevent HIV acquisition; and diagnosed with gonorrhea, chlamydia or early syphilis in the prior year.

Of those enrolled, 327 participants were taking HIV PrEP medications, and 174 participants were people living with HIV. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either doxy-PEP or standard of care. Those in the doxy-PEP arm were instructed to take one 200 milligram (mg) doxycycline-delayed release tablet, ideally within 24 hours but no later than 72 hours after condomless sex.

Doxycycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic in a family called tetracyclines. Participants were assessed by study staff every three months for adherence and side effects to the medication regimen and tested for STIs. Participant acceptability of the medication was assessed at six-and-12-month clinic visits.

An independent data and safety monitoring board reviewed study progress and safety and effectiveness data every six months. Among participants on HIV PrEP, at least one or more STIs were diagnosed in 10.7% of quarterly clinic visits in the doxy-PEP study arm compared to 31.9% of visits in the standard of care arm.

Among study participants living with HIV, one or more STIs were diagnosed in 11.8% of quarterly visits in the doxy-PEP arm versus 30.5% in the standard of care arm. Gonorrhea was the most frequently diagnosed STI in the study. Participants reported good adherence to the medication regimen with 86.2% reporting taking doxy-PEP consistently within 72 hours of condomless sex, and 71.3% reported never missing a dose.

No safety or acceptability issues were identified in the study. “Given its demonstrated efficacy in several trials, doxy-PEP should be considered as part of a sexual health package for men who have sex with men and transwomen if they have an increased risk of STIs,” according to Annie Luetkemeyer, M.D., professor of infectious diseases at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital at UCSF, and co-principal investigator of the study.

“It will be important to monitor the impact of doxy-PEP on antimicrobial resistance patterns over time and weigh this against the demonstrated benefit of reduced STIs and associated decreased antibiotic use for STI treatment in men at elevated risk for recurrent STIs.” In examining the potential for antimicrobial resistance during doxy-PEP use, the researchers discovered tetracycline resistance in a greater number of incident gonorrhea strains among those in the doxy-PEP arm than among those in the standard of care group (38.5% versus 12.5%, respectively).

This suggests that doxy-PEP may offer less protection against gonorrhea strains that are already tetracycline-resistant and that wider population-based surveillance for this type of resistance is important. Additionally, the researchers found that doxy-PEP reduced Staphylococcus aureus —a bacteria commonly found on the skin “colonization”—by 50% after a year.

• However, in those who still had Staphylococcus aureus colonization at month 12, a modestly higher proportion of those in the doxy-PEP group had doxycycline resistance (16% vs 8%).
• This is important because doxycycline may be used to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus skin and soft tissue infections.

Additional research and longer follow-up periods are needed to examine the potential antimicrobial resistance effect of intermittent doxy-PEP use. Doxy-PEP use in other populations disproportionately impacted by STIs, including women with HIV and those taking HIV PrEP, deserves further exploration as well.

“We need new, effective STI prevention methods and three studies have now demonstrated that doxy-PEP significantly reduces gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. In the next several years during the implementation of doxy-PEP, we need to learn about maximizing equitable access and impact,” said Dr. Connie Celum, Professor of Global Health and Medicine at the University of Washington and co-principal investigator of the DoxyPEP Study.

NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the,

1. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S.
2. Department of Health and Human Services.
3. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.

For more information about NIH and its programs, visit, NIHTurning Discovery Into Health ® ### : NIH-funded study finds doxycycline reduces sexually transmitted infections by two-thirds

Is 10 days of doxycycline enough for acne?

Duration of Use – Short-term use of doxycycline is the goal, which can be about three to four months. Your healthcare provider will take you off doxycycline once your skin has improved. You’ll then stay on topical treatments long-term to keep breakouts away. Some people, though, may need to use doxycycline for longer periods of time to keep acne under control. It all depends on your situation.

Does doxycycline permanently clear acne?

Q. Is doxycycline a life-long treatment? – A. No, doxycycline is not a long-term treatment. Once you’re off of it, topical treatments should be sufficient to keep the results you’ve achieved. If not, your dermatologist will most likely recommend an alternative oral medication, such as hormonal therapy or a powerful medication known as Isotretinoin.

What is the success rate of doxycycline for acne?

Brand names: Vibramycin, Monodox, Adoxa, Doryx, Doxy 100, Oracea, Acticlate, Targadox, Avidoxy, Adoxa CK, LymePak, Mondoxyne NL, Doryx MPC, Doxy-D, Oraxyl, Doxy-Caps, Alodox, Morgidox, Adoxa Pak, Adoxa TT, Uracil Okebo Doxy 200 show all brand names Doxycycline has an average rating of 6.8 out of 10 from a total of 709 reviews for the treatment of Acne.53% of reviewers reported a positive experience, while 21% reported a negative experience.

Will 7 days of doxycycline cure chlamydia?

It takes seven days for the medicine to cure chlamydia. If you have sex during those first seven days you can still pass the infection on to your sex partners and you can also get re-infected yourself.

Will 3 days of doxycycline cure gonorrhea?

The medicine takes 7 days to work. You can get gonorrhea again if you have sex before the medicine cures you and your partner. See a doctor and get checked for other STDs (including HIV). Even if you take the medicine, it is important to get tested for other STDs because you can have more than one STD at a time.

Will 14 days of doxycycline cure chlamydia?

If you suspect you have chlamydia, your doctor may want to test cervical or penile discharge or urine using one of several available methods. In most cases of chlamydia, the cure rate is 95%. However, because many women don’t know they have the disease until it has caused serious complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease, sexually active women under age 25 and others at higher risk should be tested for chlamydia once a year during their annual pelvic exam even if they don’t have symptoms.

1. Pregnant women should also be tested as part of their routine lab work.
2. If you are diagnosed with chlamydia, your doctor will prescribe oral antibiotics,
3. A single dose of azithromycin or taking doxycycline twice daily for 7 to 14 days are the most common treatments and are the same for those with or without HIV,

With treatment, the infection should clear up in about a week. Do not have sex for at least 7 days until you have taken all of your medication, and do not stop taking the antibiotics even if you feel better. Your doctor will also recommend that your partner(s) be treated as well to prevent reinfection and further spread of the disease.

Women with serious infections, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, may require a longer course of antibiotics or hospitalization for intravenous antibiotics. Some severe pelvic infections may require surgery in addition to antibiotic therapy. Make sure you get retested after three months to be certain the infection is gone.

Do this even if your partner has been treated and appears to be infection free.

Can chlamydia be cured in 3 days?

How long does it take to get rid of chlamydia? By | Aug.24, 2010, 11:11 a.m. Category: How long does it take to get rid of chlamydia? It depends. If you’re diagnosed with chlamydia, your health care provider will probably prescribe an antibiotic. In some cases, treatment is possible with a single dose of medication in the health care provider’s office.

• Other medications must be taken for seven days.
• It’s important to make sure that you take the antibiotic exactly as directed for as long as it’s prescribed — even if your symptoms go away.
• Avoid having sex until your treatment is complete and the infection is cured.
• It’s also important to let your sex partner(s) know that you have chlamydia so they can get tested and treated, too.

Some health care providers will give you medications to take home to your partner. Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted infection that’s caused by a type of bacteria called chlamydia trachomatis. Both women and men can get it by having unprotected vaginal or anal sex with an infected partner.

It can also be spread from a woman to her fetus during birth, and rarely, from the hand to the eye and, less likely, during unprotected oral sex. Each year, more than three million people of all ages become infected with chlamydia. You can avoid getting chlamydia the same way that you reduce your risk of getting other sexually transmitted infections — by abstaining from the types of things that transmit infections, or by practicing safer sex if you’re sexually active.

Condoms greatly reduce the risk of chlamydia during vaginal and anal sex. For safer oral sex, use a condom to cover the penis or a Glyde dam, cut-open condom, or plastic wrap to cover the vulva. Tags:, : How long does it take to get rid of chlamydia?

Will 3 days of doxycycline cure gonorrhea?

The medicine takes 7 days to work. You can get gonorrhea again if you have sex before the medicine cures you and your partner. See a doctor and get checked for other STDs (including HIV). Even if you take the medicine, it is important to get tested for other STDs because you can have more than one STD at a time.

How much doxycycline should I take for an STD?

A sexual health strategy called doxy-PEP, in which people who have a history of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) take doxycycline after condomless sex, is highly effective. But it is still associated with a limited rise in resistant strains of bacteria, according to preliminary results presented at 2023 CROI of a study led by UC San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the University of Washington.

• Doxy-PEP stands for doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis.
• It involves taking one 200mg pill of doxycycline, a kind of tetracycline, as soon as possible but no later than three days after having sex without a condom.
• The study observed its effects over the course of a year in men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women and found it reduced bacterial STIs, specifically gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis, by two-thirds each quarter.

The researchers said they were encouraged to find the effects on antibiotic resistance appear to be small thus far, although more time is needed to know the extent and trajectory of antimicrobial resistance associated with intermittent doxycycline use.

1. New strategies are urgently needed to curb STIs, which have been on the rise for several decades among men who have sex with men.
2. STIs are also increasing among women, for whom rising syphilis rates are of particular concern.
3. The complications for babies born to mothers infected with syphilis can be severe, including death and loss of vision and hearing.

In rare cases, adults with syphilis can become blind and deaf if not diagnosed and treated. Researchers stressed the approach is meant for men and transgender women with a risk for recurrent STIs, treatment of which requires exposure to antibiotics. To qualify for the study, participants had to have at least one occurrence of gonorrhea, chlamydia or syphilis in the past year, along with a history of condomless sex with a male partner.

1. This isn’t a choice between antibiotics and no antibiotics in men and transgender women with a history of recurrent STIs,” said Annie Luetkemeyer, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and UCSF, a co-principal investigator on the study.
2. The alternative here for many is repeated STIs that lead to recurrent antibiotics.

Doxy-PEP may mitigate the amount of antibiotics used, including broader spectrum antibiotics like ceftriaxone, the use of which was reduced by 50% in those taking doxy-PEP.” The presentation at 2023 CROI, given on Feb.20, examined antimicrobial resistance during doxy-PEP use in gonorrhea and two other types of bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus that lives on the skin and non-disease-causing Neisseria species that live in the throat.

When the researchers looked at a subset of the participants who were diagnosed with gonorrhea while they were in the study, they found more tetracycline resistant gonorrhea in those on doxy-PEP than in those who were not taking it (30% vs 11%). This suggests that doxy-PEP may be less protective against strains of gonorrhea that already have tetracycline resistance.

Larger population-based studies will be needed to understand if doxy-PEP use increases tetracycline resistance in gonorrhea. Taking doxy-PEP affected the extent to which participants were “colonized” by Staphylococcus aureus, which can be associated with subsequent clinical Staph infections.

1. Doxy-PEP reduced colonization from 44% to 31%, but the cultures that were resistant to doxycycline went up from 5% to 13%, a small but statistically significant increase.
2. There was no increase in the presence of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) overall or with doxycycline-resistant MRSA.

This is important because doxycycline is sometimes used to treat MRSA. Neisseria species commonly live in the throat without causing disease and can be a reservoir for resistance genes that can then be passed to disease causing bacteria. Neisseria species did not appear to be affected by doxy-PEP use; doxycycline resistance was already present in about two-thirds of these bacteria, and this did not change significantly after 12 months of doxy-PEP.

The ZSFG HIV clinic and the SF City Clinic, operated by SFDPH, will continue evaluating the effect of doxy-PEP on the gut microbiome, as well as the other STIs, such as mycoplasma genitalium and chlamydia. “Doxy-PEP is a promising strategy to reduce sexually transmitted infections in populations that are disproportionately affected by high rates of sexually transmitted infections, specifically, men who have sex with men and transgender women who have had recent STIs,” said Connie Celum, MD, professor of global health, medicine, and epidemiology at the University of Washington, a co-principal investigator on the study.

“It will be important to monitor the impact of doxy-PEP on antibiotic resistance over time and weigh this against the demonstrated benefit of reduced STIs.” Funding: The trial was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, through grant R01AI143439, and conducted at the HIV clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco City Clinic, both part of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and the Madison Clinic and the Sexual Health Clinic at Harborview Medical Center, both at the University of Washington The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.

What happens if you don’t finish doxycycline for chlamydia?

Yes, you can contract chlamydia more than once, although it’s rare for it to reoccur or persist after correct treatment. Chlamydia is treated with antibiotics, usually azithromycin or doxycycline. In order to make sure chlamydia is cured, you need to take the full course of antibiotics as prescribed by your doctor.

You need to take every single dose — don’t stop taking the antibiotics until there are none left. If you’ve taken all your antibiotics but you still have symptoms, contact your doctor or another healthcare professional. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), you’ll need a follow-up test three months after treatment to ensure that the infection is cured.

There are a few reasons why you might contract chlamydia a second time:

The initial infection wasn’t cured because the course of antibiotics wasn’t completed as directed.A sexual partner transmitted chlamydia to you.You used a sex toy that was contaminated with chlamydia,

A 2014 study suggests that chlamydia can live in the gastrointestinal tract and reinfect the genitals, causing chlamydia symptoms to reappear after the genital infection went away. However, this study only looked at animal models of chlamydia. Research on human participants is needed.

The symptoms of chlamydia typically disappear once you finish your antibiotics. This can vary in time, as some chlamydia antibiotic courses are one dose taken on one day, while others last longer. The CDC recommends waiting seven days after a one-day antibiotic, or until the end of a seven-day antibiotic course, before having partner sex again.

No home remedy for chlamydia can replace antibiotics. Chlamydia is a bacterial infection, so you need to take antibiotics to cure it. However, there are a few ways you can soothe symptoms while you wait for the antibiotics to get to work. For example:

Use pain medications, such as ibuprofen to reduce painUse a cold pack to soothe inflammation.A herb called goldenseal might reduce inflammation and other symptoms.Use an echinacea supplement aid your immune system.

Remember that these home remedies might soothe the symptoms of chlamydia, but they don’t actually cure chlamydia in itself. The best way to soothe the symptoms is to use antibiotics. If you take your antibiotics as directed, chlamydia is likely to go away.

But if it’s left untreated, it can cause a few complications. For example, if you have a vulva, you could develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), PID is a painful infection that could damage your uterus, cervix, and ovaries. Untreated chlamydia can also lead to scarred fallopian tubes, which can cause infertility,

If you’re pregnant, untreated chlamydia can be transmitted to the baby during vaginal delivery. Chlamydia can cause eye infections and pneumonia in newborns. Untreated chlamydia can lead to epididymitis, which is when the epididymis (the tube that holds the testicles in place) becomes inflamed, causing pain.

• Chlamydia can also spread to the prostate gland, which can lead to painful sex, lower back pain, and a fever.
• Fortunately, treatment for chlamydia is relatively straightforward.
• And if it’s treated quickly, you’re unlikely to experience any long-term complications.
• If you have a sexual partner, or if you’ve recently had sex with someone, talk with them about your chlamydia diagnosis.

They’ll need to get tested and treated, too. If your sexual partner doesn’t seek treatment, there’s a risk that they can transmit it back to you, even after your infection has been cured. Need help starting the conversation? Check out our tips on sharing your STI status.

Take all your antibiotics as directed by a healthcare professional, even if your symptoms improve. Ensure your current sexual partner is also treated for chlamydia so you don’t transmit it back and forth.Clean all sex toys thoroughly. Read our handy guide to cleaning sex toys,Use barrier methods like condoms during sexual activity.

A type of bacterium called Chlamydia trachomatis causes chlamydia. This bacterium can take hold in the tissues of your genitals, anus, eyes, or throat, It’s usually transmitted from one person to another during penetrative vaginal or anal sex or oral sex, although sex without penetration can also transmit it.

• Chlamydia can also be transmitted to a baby during vaginal delivery if the person giving birth has an untreated chlamydia infection.
• If you suspect you have chlamydia, see a healthcare professional as soon as possible.
• Abstain from all sexual activity until your appointment.
• If you aren’t comfortable getting tested for STIs with your usual provider, you can find a clinic in your area.

There are many free or low-cost clinics. Here’s how to find one near you. You can also visit GetTested or call CDC Info at 800-232-4636 (TTY: 888-232-6348) to find local clinics. It’s possible to have chlamydia more than once. To prevent reoccurrence or reinfection, finish your full course of antibiotic treatment, and talk with your sexual partner(s) about getting tested and treated for chlamydia, too.