Perhaps you recently had unprotected sex; and perhaps your partner later informed you that he or she started experiencing chlamydia symptoms. You probably didn’t take the news very well. But then as the weeks went by, you came to realize that you weren’t having any known chlamydia symptoms despite the fact that your partner was in a fair amount of discomfort before receiving treatment. And based on that comparison, you decided to avoid STD testing, thinking that you didn’t need a chlamydia test after all.
While exposure to chlamydia does not always result in infection, it’s a bad idea to rely on a lack of chlamydia symptoms as a sign that you don’t have the disease. Furthermore, there’s no sense in comparing your chlamydia symptoms to those of your partner, as symptoms of chlamydia impact people differently. Many people who have chlamydia don’t realize it until an STD test says otherwise. So if you know that the possibility of chlamydia infection exists, don’t put off chlamydia testing just because you’ve managed to avoid chlamydia symptoms thus far. Left untreated, chlamydia can cause long-term health problems, especially in women, so the sooner you find out whether you’ve been infected, the sooner you can get treated and avoid unwanted complications.
