Chlamydia – Unveiling Ways to Safeguard Your Health and Relationships from This Silent STI

Chlamydia – Unveiling Ways to Safeguard Your Health and Relationships from This Silent STI

When it comes to raising awareness about sexual health, the emphasis tends to revolve around contraception and practice of safe sex. The topic of STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) screening is often overlooked, leading to a lack of understanding about why regular testing for chlamydia is important for your well-being and the health of your sexual partners. Thanks to urgent care clinics, testing for chlamydia and accessing treatment is easier than ever before.

Identifying the symptoms of chlamydia

Chlamydia is a common bacterial STI that is often referred to as the ‘silent infection’ since affected individuals do not usually experience symptoms. And when the symptoms do show up, it can drastically vary in intensity and easily be mistaken for other issues. Some of these symptoms are:

• Pain or burning sensation while urinating
• Unusual discharge from the genitals often accompanied by foul odor, and abnormal color or consistency
• Women may experience lower abdominal pain while men may observe testicular pain
• Women may also notice irregular bleeding between menstrual cycles.

Remember that the symptoms may be subtle in some, extreme in others and totally absent in majority of affected individuals. Regularly visiting an urgent care clinic in Arlington for chlamydia screening is paramount since you may be carrying around the infection and passing it on to others without even knowing it.

Testing options for chlamydia

Urgent care clinics offer confidential and convenient options to test for chlamydia. Your test may involve any of the following methods:

• Urine test: This non-invasive test is fairly accurate and the commonly used option. If this comes out positive, you may be recommended more advanced tests.
• Swab test: Your healthcare provider will take a swab from the genital area for testing. Taking a swab from cervix in women and the urethra in men is quick and painless. This swab will then be sent for testing.

Watching out for symptoms is not a reliable strategy since chlamydia often creates no symptoms in affected individuals. Virginia chlamydia screening test is easier and quicker than you think. Collecting samples takes just a few minutes and results are usually available on the same day.

Why chlamydia testing matters

If left untreated, chlamydia can lead to severe complications. For instance, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), fertility problems and chronic pelvic pain. Men may experience epididymitis and infertility if chlamydia is left unchecked. More importantly, chlamydia can elevate the risk of contracting HIV.

It is more than your health at stake here. If you are infected with chlamydia and continue to engage in physical intercourse without protection, your sexual partners are at risk of getting infected. Considering the highly contagious nature of chlamydia, anyone who comes into contact with body fluids of an infected individual risks contracting the infection. For this reason, regularly visiting a walk-in clinic in Arlington for chlamydia screening is not just about you, but being responsible about the well-being of your partner/s as well.

Visit an urgent care clinic today

If you have never visited an urgent care clinic before, you are in for a pleasant surprise. The quick consultation, immediate testing, same day results, committed staff and convenient timings are sure to leave you impressed.

Did you know you can walk in to an urgent care clinic without an appointment? Yes. It’s true. These clinics require no prior appointments to allow you access to STI testing. All you need to do is walk in and state your purpose. The healthcare experts will maintain confidentiality while handling your details and results. Spare a few minutes for testing and you can be on your way. Come back to collect the results in a few hours or request the results to be mailed to you. Either way, STI screening cannot get any easier.