pain.
Diagnosis: Patients should talk to their healthcare providers to determine how often they should be tested for chlamydia. Patients who have symptoms of chlamydia or suspect that they may have been exposed to chlamydia should be tested. The CDC recommends that all pregnant women are screened for chlamydia during the first prenatal examination and possibly later on in the pregnancy.
The standard diagnostic test for chlamydia is a culture swab. For females, the healthcare provider may swab the discharge from the cervix. For males, the healthcare provider inserts a thin swab into the tip of the penis to retrieve a sample of fluid from the urethra. In some cases, the healthcare provider may swab the anus. The sample is then rubbed on a petri dish. If the patient has chlamydia, Chlamydia trachomatis will grow on the petri dish.
A urine analysis may also be performed. A sample of the patient's urine is analyzed in a laboratory for the presence of the disease-causing bacteria.
Treatment: Chlamydia is curable. Patients take prescription antibiotics, such as azithromycin (Zithromax®), doxycycline, or erythromycin (ERYC® or Ery-Tab®), by mouth. Treatment may last up to 10 days. Patients should take their medications exactly as prescribed. Even if symptoms go away, medications should not be stopped early because the bacteria may still be present in the body.
The patient's sexual partner(s) will also require treatment, even if they do not have symptoms of the infection. Otherwise, the patient may become re-infected with chlamydia.
Overview: Genital herpes, also called herpes simplex type 2 (HHV-2), is an incurable viral infection that is characterized by painful sores on the genitals.
Genital herpes can only be contracted through direct sexual contact, including genital-to-genital, mouth-to-genital, or hand-to-genital contact with an infected partner. Individuals cannot contract the virus through kissing. Occasionally, oral-genital contact can spread oral herpes to the genitals (and vice versa). Individuals with active herpes lesions on or around their mouths or on their genitals should only engage in oral sex if they use a condom or place a small piece of latex, called a dental dam, over the vagina or anus.
The chance of a pregnant woman passing herpes to her baby is highest if the first infection occurs near the time of delivery. The virus can be transmitted to the fetus through the placenta during pregnancy or during vaginal childbirth. First-time infection during pregnancy leads to an increased risk of miscarriage, decreased fetal growth, and preterm labor. About 30-50% of infants who are born vaginally to a mother with first-time infection become infected with the herpes virus. Of babies born to women experiencing recurrent outbreaks at the time of birth, one to four percent become infected with the herpes-simplex virus.
After an initial or primary infection, herpes viruses establish a period called latency, during which the virus is present in the cell bodies of nerves that attach to the area of the original viral outbreak (e.g. genitals, mouth, and lips). At some point, this latency ends and the virus becomes active again. While active, the virus begins to multiply (called shedding) and becomes transmittable again. This shedding may or may not be accompanied by symptoms. During reactivation, the virus multiplies in the nerve cell and is transported outwardly via the nerve to the skin. The ability of herpes virus to become latent and reactive explains the long-term, recurring nature of a herpes infection.
Recurrence of the viral symptoms is usually milder than the original infection. Recurrence may be triggered by menstruation, sun exposure, illnesses that cause fevers, stress, immune system imbalances, and other unknown causes. However, not all patients experience a second outbreak.
Symptoms: Genital herpes typically causes painful, watery blisters to develop on the skin, mucous membranes (e.g. the mouth or lips), or genitals. The location of these blisters depends on where contact was made during transmission. Lesions h