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Chlamydia Confusion
As you can tell I have no idea what to think or where to go with this. He is convinced he never had it, but I am not as confident. I am nervous to trust the results of his tests as the way he describes them being analyzed seems incredibly unreliable to me. I do not want to have him come back and me get re-infected. Not just for the concern of my OWN health, but for our baby's health as well. The doctor who tested him out there was also incredibly obnoxious in my opinion and stated to my husband that maybe he should ask me if I needed to tell him about something (insinuating that I had been unfaithful..... which I absolutely have not). I would like to be able to set my husbands mind at ease if that is possible. I know that this kind of thing would be hard to deal with anyways with the information he has been given, but being halfway around the world from your wife when you receive this kind of info must be more difficult for him than I can imagine. I understand where he is coming from but it is and has been incredibly difficult for me to stay calm when he reports the kinds of things his doctor out there tells him as I feel I have to defend myself and my loyalty to him. I would even consider a polygraph test, but I feel like I shouldnt HAVE to do that for him to trust me. I feel I have been incredibly trusting in the information he has given me. Anyways, I am sure you can see my heavy concern and I appreciate as much information as you can give me regarding all of my questions..... or anything else you think may be helpful information pertaining to this issue. Thank you.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
The reason the site was "giving you problems" is that it does not allow questions of more than 1,500 spaces (about 350 words). That's about the total length of the window just above this on, and I was looking for you to start from the beginning and compress all information plus your questions into that length. But I will try to respond.
On scanning all the information (but without time to read it all!), I gather that the situation is that you had a positive chlamydia test and your husband did not, and neither of you recently has had other sex partners. You will understand that the most common explanation is that one or the other member of a couple has indeed had another sex partner; certainly that's the case for most of my patients. (But what do you expect from an STD specialist?) But there are several other possible explanations. I will not try to choose between them; that part is up to you.
* As you suggest yourself, chlamydia tests can be falsely positive. This depends a lot on the kind of test you had. The older chlamydia tests (but still used by some laboratories), called "DNA probe" tests, are particularly likely to give false positive results. The more recently developed tests, now done by most but not all labs, are called "DNA amplification" tests, also known as nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT). The NAATs rarely are false positive. If your test was NAAT, probably you indeed were infected with chlamydia.
* All tests can miss a chlamydial infection, i.e. can give false negative results. These include NAATs. A test is especially likely to miss an infection if urine is tested, which is the usual method in men. So your husband could have had it and still had a negative test.
* Chlamydia isn't transmitted 100% of the time. Some regular partners of infected people remain uninfected themselves. Related to this is immunity: infection once reduces the chance someone will get it again. So some people never catch iteven with continued sex with an infected partner.
* Although condoms are highly protective if properly and consistently used. But "proper and consistent" are difficult standards. They also are 100% protective against pregnancy, yet 10% of couples who rely on condoms as their only contraceptive get pregnant. (Pregnancy is more easly "transmitted" than chlamydia, but you get the idea.)
* Chlamydia goes away even without treatment. It tends to last longer in women than men. The longest known infection in women is 4 years, but once in a while it could be longer. In men most infections probably go away within a few months. If infection lasts longer in one member of a couple than the other, they could both have been infected, but only one still has it when testing is done.
* People with chlamydia might receive antibiotics that cure them. Sometimes this happens when someone knows s/he is infected and gets treatment, but is not truthful with his or her partner. Other times, an infected person may be treated with an antibiotic for something else, say bronchitis or a skin infection. The chlamydia is cured without anybody ever knowing it was there.
None of these answers directly can tell where or when you were infected, or whether either you or your partner might have other partners. But as you have seen, there are plenty of possibilities that don't necessarily mean that either partner has had sex with other people. As I said above, I won't get into that. However, if you have no other reason to suspect your partner has been unfaithful, and if you have not had other partners, I suggest you and your husband just chalk it up to a mystery -- due to one oor more of the explanations I just gave, but maybe never knowing which one.
Now I will very briefly answer each of your specific questions:
1-3 ) Already answered; see above.
4) Blood tests are poor for chlamydia. If positive, it can be due to other kinds of chlamydia, not sexually transmitted. And some people who have been infected don't have positive tests. Chlamydia blood tests are not recommended in this sort of circumstance; whether positive or negative, it won't tell anything helpful.
5) A sample for chlamydia testing cannot be faxed. Your husband misunderstood somethign he was told. Most likely test specimens are shipped by air to labs in the US.
6) Those things would make no difference. But as I explained above, he could have been infected but had a spontaneous cure; or maybe he received an antibiotic that cured him somewhere along the line.
7) All these were answered above.
At this point, you probably are just going to have to live with the mystery. If you are otherwise confident about your husband's fidelity, you should trust him. The same goes for his trust for you. As you have seen, there are plenty of explanations that don't require infidelity or lying.
Finally, presumably you have been treated for your infection. To be maximally safe, your husband also should be treated; that is the only way to be 100% certain that he is no longer infected. All partners of all persons with chlamydia should be routinely treated, even when their own tests are negative.
I hope this helps. Best wishes-- HHH, MD
On scanning all the information (but without time to read it all!), I gather that the situation is that you had a positive chlamydia test and your husband did not, and neither of you recently has had other sex partners. You will understand that the most common explanation is that one or the other member of a couple has indeed had another sex partner; certainly that's the case for most of my patients. (But what do you expect from an STD specialist?) But there are several other possible explanations. I will not try to choose between them; that part is up to you.
* As you suggest yourself, chlamydia tests can be falsely positive. This depends a lot on the kind of test you had. The older chlamydia tests (but still used by some laboratories), called "DNA probe" tests, are particularly likely to give false positive results. The more recently developed tests, now done by most but not all labs, are called "DNA amplification" tests, also known as nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT). The NAATs rarely are false positive. If your test was NAAT, probably you indeed were infected with chlamydia.
* All tests can miss a chlamydial infection, i.e. can give false negative results. These include NAATs. A test is especially likely to miss an infection if urine is tested, which is the usual method in men. So your husband could have had it and still had a negative test.
* Chlamydia isn't transmitted 100% of the time. Some regular partners of infected people remain uninfected themselves. Related to this is immunity: infection once reduces the chance someone will get it again. So some people never catch iteven with continued sex with an infected partner.
* Although condoms are highly protective if properly and consistently used. But "proper and consistent" are difficult standards. They also are 100% protective against pregnancy, yet 10% of couples who rely on condoms as their only contraceptive get pregnant. (Pregnancy is more easly "transmitted" than chlamydia, but you get the idea.)
* Chlamydia goes away even without treatment. It tends to last longer in women than men. The longest known infection in women is 4 years, but once in a while it could be longer. In men most infections probably go away within a few months. If infection lasts longer in one member of a couple than the other, they could both have been infected, but only one still has it when testing is done.
* People with chlamydia might receive antibiotics that cure them. Sometimes this happens when someone knows s/he is infected and gets treatment, but is not truthful with his or her partner. Other times, an infected person may be treated with an antibiotic for something else, say bronchitis or a skin infection. The chlamydia is cured without anybody ever knowing it was there.
None of these answers directly can tell where or when you were infected, or whether either you or your partner might have other partners. But as you have seen, there are plenty of possibilities that don't necessarily mean that either partner has had sex with other people. As I said above, I won't get into that. However, if you have no other reason to suspect your partner has been unfaithful, and if you have not had other partners, I suggest you and your husband just chalk it up to a mystery -- due to one oor more of the explanations I just gave, but maybe never knowing which one.
Now I will very briefly answer each of your specific questions:
1-3 ) Already answered; see above.
4) Blood tests are poor for chlamydia. If positive, it can be due to other kinds of chlamydia, not sexually transmitted. And some people who have been infected don't have positive tests. Chlamydia blood tests are not recommended in this sort of circumstance; whether positive or negative, it won't tell anything helpful.
5) A sample for chlamydia testing cannot be faxed. Your husband misunderstood somethign he was told. Most likely test specimens are shipped by air to labs in the US.
6) Those things would make no difference. But as I explained above, he could have been infected but had a spontaneous cure; or maybe he received an antibiotic that cured him somewhere along the line.
7) All these were answered above.
At this point, you probably are just going to have to live with the mystery. If you are otherwise confident about your husband's fidelity, you should trust him. The same goes for his trust for you. As you have seen, there are plenty of explanations that don't require infidelity or lying.
Finally, presumably you have been treated for your infection. To be maximally safe, your husband also should be treated; that is the only way to be 100% certain that he is no longer infected. All partners of all persons with chlamydia should be routinely treated, even when their own tests are negative.
I hope this helps. Best wishes-- HHH, MD
#1 How is it possible that I had it and he did not? I have been told that my test could have been a "false positive" although there is no way to know that now.
#2 Is it possible that I could have contracted this from the partner over a year ago and never known? Never shown symptoms?
#3 Is it possible that I could have contracted it from a person I had PROTECTED sex with in the interim?
#4 My husband was told that this Blood test he had done would tell him without a doubt if he had EVER had Chlamydia. Is this true?? If so is it possible to tell from the test WHEN someone contracted it or how long they have had it? as this would help me to determine where it did come from.
#5 As he is deployed his "samples" are "faxed" (this is how he described it) to the Base here in the united states and analyzed, then results are emailed or faxed back to the base abroad. To me this does not seem logical but who knows with technology these days..... what is the truth in all of this? Should I trust those tests? Should I have him re-tested when he re-enters the States??
#6 If the "blood test" is not all he has been told it is, Hypothetically, lets say he DID have it. Is it possible that all of the stuff he gets injected with prior to deployment could have killed the infection in him? (anthrax, small pox, etc).
#7 Is it really possible that we have had sex (a lot) in 5 months between the first time and when I was tested and he never contracted it?? Is it more likely that I never had it than for him to have not gotten it? And what is the likelihood that his body could have got rid of the infection on its own even while we were still sexually active??
#2 Is it possible that I could have contracted this from the partner over a year ago and never known? Never shown symptoms?
#3 Is it possible that I could have contracted it from a person I had PROTECTED sex with in the interim?
#4 My husband was told that this Blood test he had done would tell him without a doubt if he had EVER had Chlamydia. Is this true?? If so is it possible to tell from the test WHEN someone contracted it or how long they have had it? as this would help me to determine where it did come from.
#5 As he is deployed his "samples" are "faxed" (this is how he described it) to the Base here in the united states and analyzed, then results are emailed or faxed back to the base abroad. To me this does not seem logical but who knows with technology these days..... what is the truth in all of this? Should I trust those tests? Should I have him re-tested when he re-enters the States??
#6 If the "blood test" is not all he has been told it is, Hypothetically, lets say he DID have it. Is it possible that all of the stuff he gets injected with prior to deployment could have killed the infection in him? (anthrax, small pox, etc).
#7 Is it really possible that we have had sex (a lot) in 5 months between the first time and when I was tested and he never contracted it?? Is it more likely that I never had it than for him to have not gotten it? And what is the likelihood that his body could have got rid of the infection on its own even while we were still sexually active??
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
The reason for the character limit is to require that the initial question be reasonably quick and easy to read, and that it all appear in a single window. You cannot get around it by having your question spill over into a comment window. (Some forum moderators set defaults so that they don't even see any comments.) Please summarize your questions in a new comment window, in about the length of the initial window above. Then I will reply.
HHH, MD
HHH, MD
I have no idea what happened to the top portion of my question there...... I am glad I saved it to my computer tho! Here is what came BEFORE the information above. The site was giving me problems upon submission so I dont know what cause only part of the information to submit.THANK YOU
I recently became pregnant with my second child. The first was born in 3/06. The last OBGYN appt I had to test for STD's was sometime about 3 months after the birth. So around 6/06 or 7/06. Everything came back negative. That partner and I had been together at that point for 8 years. In 10/07 we went our separate ways. Between 10/07 and 4/08 I did not have any unprotected sex. In 4/08 I started dating a friend I had known for years and we did have unprotected sex. We got married in 06/08 and became pregnant in 07/08. At my first prenatal appointment (9/08) they did the series of tests for all STD's (among a million other tests) and called a week later to say that I was in fact infected with Chlamydia along with having a yeast infection. (I was not surprised to the yeast infection results as this occurred in the last pregnancy as well). I did not know what to think except that I had been foolish to have unprotected sex with someone without us both first being tested. I immediately went and got the prescription to clear up the infections and took the medication. I was unaware that sometimes it is important to have a second test for these sorts of things done FIRST to make sure the test were correct. After the medication was already taken it was already too late. My husband is in the military and recently has been deployed. I informed him of the situation and was very honest with him that the last person I had unprotected sex with besides him was the man I was with for 9.5 years, and that I didn’t think I had contracted anything from him, unless of course he had been unfaithful which I did not have any way of knowing. (Prior to the end of our relationship I did confront him and ask him if it were true and he always said no.... although I am not entirely convinced). My husband has admitted that prior to us getting involved he had had unprotected sex and sometimes with people he did not know very well (again why didn’t I ask this BEFORE we had sex?) as recently as 2 months prior to our first sexual encounter. I told him that he needed to go to the doctor and get tested and then treated depending on the test results. His tests (he took 3 total... 2 swabs and one "blood") came back negative. Here are my questions:
#1 How is it possible that I had it and he did not? I have been told that my test could have been a "false positive" although there is no way to know that now.
#2 Is it possible that I could have contracted this from the partner over a year ago and never known? Never shown symptoms?
#3 Is it possible that I could have contracted it from a person I had PROTECTED sex with in the interim?
#4 My husband was told that this Blood test he had done would tell him without a doubt if he had EVER had Chlamydia. Is this true?? If so is it possible to tell from the test WHEN someone contracted it or how long they have had it? as this would help me to determine where it did come from.
#5 As he is deployed his "samples" are "faxed" (this is how he described it) to the Base here in the united states and analyzed, then results are emailed or faxed back to the base abroad. To me this does not seem logical but who knows with technology these days..... what is the truth in all of this? Should I trust those tests? Should I have him re-tested when he re-enters the States??
#6 If the "blood test" is not all he has been told it is, Hypothetically, lets say he DID have it. Is it possible that all of the stuff he gets injected with prior to deployment could have killed the infection in him? (anthrax, small pox, etc).
#7 Is it really possible that we have had sex (a lot) in 5 months between the first time and when I was tested and he never contracted it?? Is it more likely that I never had it than for him to have not gotten it? And what is the likelihood that his body could have got rid of the infection on its own even while we were still sexually active??
I recently became pregnant with my second child. The first was born in 3/06. The last OBGYN appt I had to test for STD's was sometime about 3 months after the birth. So around 6/06 or 7/06. Everything came back negative. That partner and I had been together at that point for 8 years. In 10/07 we went our separate ways. Between 10/07 and 4/08 I did not have any unprotected sex. In 4/08 I started dating a friend I had known for years and we did have unprotected sex. We got married in 06/08 and became pregnant in 07/08. At my first prenatal appointment (9/08) they did the series of tests for all STD's (among a million other tests) and called a week later to say that I was in fact infected with Chlamydia along with having a yeast infection. (I was not surprised to the yeast infection results as this occurred in the last pregnancy as well). I did not know what to think except that I had been foolish to have unprotected sex with someone without us both first being tested. I immediately went and got the prescription to clear up the infections and took the medication. I was unaware that sometimes it is important to have a second test for these sorts of things done FIRST to make sure the test were correct. After the medication was already taken it was already too late. My husband is in the military and recently has been deployed. I informed him of the situation and was very honest with him that the last person I had unprotected sex with besides him was the man I was with for 9.5 years, and that I didn’t think I had contracted anything from him, unless of course he had been unfaithful which I did not have any way of knowing. (Prior to the end of our relationship I did confront him and ask him if it were true and he always said no.... although I am not entirely convinced). My husband has admitted that prior to us getting involved he had had unprotected sex and sometimes with people he did not know very well (again why didn’t I ask this BEFORE we had sex?) as recently as 2 months prior to our first sexual encounter. I told him that he needed to go to the doctor and get tested and then treated depending on the test results. His tests (he took 3 total... 2 swabs and one "blood") came back negative. Here are my questions:
#1 How is it possible that I had it and he did not? I have been told that my test could have been a "false positive" although there is no way to know that now.
#2 Is it possible that I could have contracted this from the partner over a year ago and never known? Never shown symptoms?
#3 Is it possible that I could have contracted it from a person I had PROTECTED sex with in the interim?
#4 My husband was told that this Blood test he had done would tell him without a doubt if he had EVER had Chlamydia. Is this true?? If so is it possible to tell from the test WHEN someone contracted it or how long they have had it? as this would help me to determine where it did come from.
#5 As he is deployed his "samples" are "faxed" (this is how he described it) to the Base here in the united states and analyzed, then results are emailed or faxed back to the base abroad. To me this does not seem logical but who knows with technology these days..... what is the truth in all of this? Should I trust those tests? Should I have him re-tested when he re-enters the States??
#6 If the "blood test" is not all he has been told it is, Hypothetically, lets say he DID have it. Is it possible that all of the stuff he gets injected with prior to deployment could have killed the infection in him? (anthrax, small pox, etc).
#7 Is it really possible that we have had sex (a lot) in 5 months between the first time and when I was tested and he never contracted it?? Is it more likely that I never had it than for him to have not gotten it? And what is the likelihood that his body could have got rid of the infection on its own even while we were still sexually active??
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