Chlamydia in Throat: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment (2024)

Oral chlamydia is an infection in the mouth or throat caused by the Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria. It is passed through oral sex. This is the same bacteria that causes genital or anal chlamydia, which are more common.

People often suspect they have chlamydia when they get genital and urinary tract symptoms like painful urination or vagin*l discharge. But those who get it through oral sex don't always connect the symptoms to the disease because they can be easily attributed to other conditions.

This article takes a closer look at the symptoms and causes of oral chlamydia. It also explains how this STD is diagnosed, treated, and prevented.

How Do You Get Oral Chlamydia?

A person can get oral chlamydia by performing oral sex on someone who is infected. This includes oral-penile sex, oral-vagin*l sex, and oral-anal sex.

Chlamydia trachomatis can also be transmitted from the throat of someone with chlamydia to the penis of someone without the infection. Interestingly, research suggests that chlamydia is unlikely to be passed from the throat to the vagin* or rectum.

All current evidence indicates that chlamydia cannot be passed through kissing.

Certain risk factors can increase a person's risk of getting chlamydia, most notably:

• Having multiple sex partners
• Not using condoms consistently
• Being sexually active before age 25
• History of STDs

Oral chlamydia is far less common than genital chlamydia. Research shows that around 10% of people who visit an STD clinic have genital chlamydia, but only around 1.5% have oral chlamydia.

There are many misconceptions about the different ways you can get chlamydia. Here are a few of the ways you cannot get infected with chlamydia:

• Using a public toilet seat
• Sharing a towel
• Hugging or kissing

Oral Chlamydia Symptoms

It can be hard to tell if you have chlamydia in the mouth, since it doesn't usually cause symptoms. If there are symptoms, the primary one tends to be a sore throat. This symptom can be confused with any number of other conditions from allergies and colds to strep throat and acid reflux.

Oral chlamydia can take anywhere from one to three weeks to show up after sexual contact. This is another reason why many don't make the connection between their symptoms and this infection.

When symptoms of oral chlamydia do develop, they often include:

• Sore throat
• Redness in the mouth or throat
• Swollen tonsils
• Swollen lymph nodes in the neck
• Bumps on the tongue
• Mouth pain
• Mouth sores
• White spots in the back of the throat or tonsils
• Sores around the lips
• Mild fever
• Fatigue
  

How Bad Is Oral Chlamydia?

Oral chlamydia can sometimes lead to secondary oral infections. Because the body is so busy fighting chlamydia, it is less able to fight other infections that contribute to gum diseases like gingivitis and periodontal disease. Dental pain, bleeding gums, and tooth loss are among the complications of these diseases.

Arguably, the bigger concern is that people with oral chlamydia are able to pass the infection to others. Depending on which part of the body is affected, chlamydia can lead to complications such as:

• Conjunctivitis (pink eye)
• Epididymitis (inflammation of the spermatic cord)
• Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) (infection of the female reproductive organs)
  
• Ectopic pregnancy (implantation of a fertilized egg outside of the womb)
• Reactive arthritis (joint pain and swelling triggered by an infection)
• Male or female infertility

In addition, having chlamydia increases the risk of HIV. This is because chlamydia triggers an inflammatory response that draws white blood cells, called CD4 T-cells, to the site of the infection.

These are the very cells that HIV targets for infection. Because of this, chlamydia ends up "helping" HIV establish an infection.

Diagnosing Oral Chlamydia

Getting a swab test done is the most accurate way to know whether you have oral chlamydia. After swabbing the mouth and throat, the healthcare provider will send the sample to a lab for evaluation using a technology known as a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT).

NAAT tests multiply the genetic material ofbacteria (or in other cases, viruses) to positively identify the cause of an infection. The test is sensitive to even a small number of bacteria and can usually return results within one to two days.

NAAT swabs can also be used on the vagin*, cervix, or rectum. In addition, NAAT technology is used to detect Chlamydia trachomatis in a urine sample.

Testing for chlamydia outside of the genitals or rectum is not a routine part of STD screening. This accounts for why oral STDs often go undiagnosed and untreated.

How Is Oral Chlamydia Treated?

Oral chlamydia will go away after a course of antibiotics, just like genital or anal chlamydia. There are several treatments recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• Preferred treatment: 100 milligrams (mg) of doxycycline taken by mouth two times daily for seven days
• Alternative treatments: 1 gram (g) of Zithromax (azithromycin) taken by mouth in a single dose, or 500 mg of levofloxacin taken by mouth once daily for seven days

Avoid having sexual intercourse during your treatment and for at least seven days after you've finished treatment. This includes all types of sexual contact such as oral sex, vagin*l sex, and anal sex.

If you have been diagnosed with chlamydia, all sexual partners need to be informed and treated. Repeated infections are common when this does not occur. Chlamydia reinfection increases the risk of complications such as PID and ectopic pregnancy.

Prevention

Abstinence is the only way to avoid oral chlamydia completely. Barring that, you can lower your risk by reducing your number of sex partners.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends chlamydia screening for all sexually active females 24 years or younger, as well as females 25 years or older who are at an increased risk of infection.

Using condoms or dental dams consistently can also reduce the risk of either passing or getting an STD like chlamydia. This not only includes external (male) condoms but also internal (female) condoms.

If you don't have a dental dam, you can cut a condom lengthwise and open it flat.

Summary

Oral chlamydia occurs when the Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria infects the mouth. You can get oral chlamydia through oral sex. It is the same bacteria that causes chlamydia in the genitals or anus.

Symptoms include sore throat, fever, fatigue, mouth sores, and swollen tonsil or lymph nodes, but many cases show no symptoms at all. The bacteria can be detected by testing a sample of fluid collected during an oral swab.

Antibiotics are needed to treat the infection. Without them, oral chlamydia can lead to secondary mouth infections, dental pain, and gum disease. More importantly, people with undiagnosed oral chlamydia can pass the infection to others.