Talk:Chlamydia infection

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[edit] Other animals

The page koala claims that koalas can have chlamydia. Aside from the obvious dirty jokes, some information about chlamydia in non-human species might be relevant here. --FOo 17:12, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)It seems cougars or pumas are also having problems with this disease.

There are many different types of Chlamydia. The STD (and the type that causes conjunctivitis in neonates,) is C. trachomatis. The types that koalas get are C. pecorum and C. pneumoniae. Humans also get other types of Chlamydia besides C. trachomatis.Walking Softly 03:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orthography

As far I’m concerned I think taxonomical names must be written in italic text, as the following: Escherichia coli or E. coli. Please, revise than question.

The Veronica Mars paragraph is irrelevant for this topic and should be removed. 15:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acquiring Chlamydia without sexual contact?

Chlamydia is just as likely to occur when there is no recent sexual contact, recent onset of menses, or an IUD in place or if the partner has a sexually transmitted disease.

Is it possible to become infected with chlamydia without having sexual contact to an infected person? Can I take the quoted sentence from paragraph 3 of the article to mean that? --82.207.230.185 19:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It's very unclear what the author of that sentence was trying to say. They may have meant:
  • That you can become infected even if you are not having regular sexual contact (which is true - you can get it from a single sexual encounter).
  • That symptoms may occur spontaneously in a previously infected person without any recent sexual contact (also true).
  • That you can contract chlamydia from non-sexual contact. This is true, but quite rare. Newborn babies can catch chlamydia from their mothers during birth, and hand-to-eye infections and other non-sexual infections are possible.
However, the statement as worded is very vague. -- 125.236.147.165 11:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear sentence

In the article, I read the following sentence:

Appendicitis, ectopic pregnancy, septic abortion, hemorrhagic or ruptured ovarian cysts or tumors, twisted ovarian cyst, degeneration of a myoma, and acute enteritis must be considered.

Can someone replace the that sentence with a clearer explanation. The sentence tells me to consider several unpleasant conditions, or at least that someone must consider them. I wonder who must consider these conditions, when must they be considered, and why must these conditions be considered.

Moreover, it does not become clear whether the fact that these conditions must be considered has any relationship with the subject off this article, which is Chlamydia. I suppose it has, because someone wrote that sentence in this article and not in the article Influenza.

One more thing, could someone also explain how these conditions must be considered? Is it okay if I just lean back in my chair for five minutes, and quitly consider appendicitis and that other stuff? Or should something else be done as well? And I would welcome some links from those hard words to some applicable Wikipedia articles as well. Johan Lont 11:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The unclear sentence originates from this edit. Johan Lont 12:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I have further investigated the origins from that sentence. It seems to come from some edits done from IP-address 86.43.65.247 on February 6, 2007. Looks like nonsense. For example, the next sentence was cut off halfway. I will delete those edits. Johan Lont 12:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Unusual discharge"

Can someone go into more detail about the "unusual discharge"? What is it? What is it made up of? Flashpoint145 02:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Untested Treatments

Why does the page list a treatment (Ciprofloxacin) which comes under the heading 'untested' and a disclaimer saying it is shown to be ineffective? I don't see what this adds to the article apart from a disclaimer that breaks the layout due to not wrapping, unless this is a common treatment and listed to inform people of its lack of efficacy —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.152.221.253 (talk) 22:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Images

The images really did not identify anything, thus I have removed them. Before inserting them again, make sure to give a detailled descrption of what to look for on the images.

[edit] Burning

If you have a buring sensation while urinating dose it mean you deffinetly have a STD? Thank you in advance! Sorry about the spelling!

It would not necessarily be an STD. Burning during or after urination could indicate an STD, a urinary tract infection, or irritation of the urethra, BUT - If in doubt, get it checked out, untreated STDs can lead to fertility problems. BruceD270 16:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eyes

Is it true that they put something in the eyes of babies when they are born to kill off this disease?

In the U.S. it is Silver nitrate (1%) or Erythromycin (0.5%) or Tetracycline ophthalmic ointment (1%) according to the CDC.gov 2002 site. BruceD270 15:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diagnosis

What is the procedure for determining if someone has Chlamydia? Is it a standard blood test?

In the U.S., I would say most physicians diagnose it based on signs & symptoms (but co-infection with gonorrhea must be suspected). To confirm the diagnosis, there are a few options 1) PCR of clean-catch urine (as on the wikipage) 2) Culture/gram stain of urethral/cervical swab or conjunctival scraping, but these must contain epithelial cells, as chlamydia is an obligate intracellular. BruceD270 16:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I tried to add this bit b/c the part about diagnosis is really weird. But I'm new and when I tried adding it, it totally messed the page up. Here it is if someone can add it for me!--> In addition, due to its high specificity (100%) and high sensitivity, cell culture remains the only method that should be used for testing when possible legal implications may be involved. Giemsa stains or immunofluorescent staining with monoclonal antibodies (never gram stains) are used to view the intracytoplasmic inclusions in the cell cultures. (Btw, you can reference the eMedicine page that I already added to the references.)Walking Softly 03:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, with regards to diagnosis to diagnosis of genitourinary infections (penis/vagina), guys can have a pee-in-the cup test, but women need what looks like a pap smear test. Makes sense since the urine doesn't come through the vagina, right? Adults RARELY get it in the eye. Babies get it there just b/c the mom is infected in her vagina (if she didn't get proper pre-natal care) and as the baby passes through the birth canal, it gets secretions in its eyes. Nowadays, no matter what, if a baby is born in a hospital, it's given erythromycin eye drops immediately. Unfortunately this is not always effective. Baby can also get pneumonia this way.Walking Softly 03:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Chlamydia and oral sex It is given on [1] that Chlamydia is difficult to get by oral sex. The bacteria does not infect the oral area as much as the genitals.

[edit] Reiter's syndrome

The term "Reiter's syndrome" is absolutely still used. Sorry to hear about Reiter's association with Nazi's, but docs still use it and it's still taught in med schools and tested on the boards. The thing is, you can't apply it to simple reactive arthritis caused by chlamydia or gonorrhea. Reiter's syndrome refers to the triad (MUST have all 3 parts--you can't say patient has Reiter's syndrome minus conjunctivitis or some silliness like that) of reactive arthritis, conjunctivitis, and urethritis.

Can we take this bit out and instead explain what true Reiter's syndrome is or at least explain what reactive arthritis is?

Btw, reactive arthritis is something that could be avoided if the chlamydia/gonorrhea were treated immediately with antibiotics, but after the arthrtitis has established itself, it's really its own entitity, and must be treated like regular arthritis. Walking Softly 16:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

REMOVED BIT REGARDING HANS REITER (SEEMS UNNECESSARY, AND REALLY ISN'T TRUE): (Some forms of reactive arthritis formerly were known as Reiter's syndrome. The latter term has fallen out of favor owing to revelations about Hans Reiter's Nazi past and in particular his alleged active participation in horrific human experiments in concentration camps.)Walking Softly 14:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We Need CITATIONS!! (References)

Please look up facts and add citations where you can. There should be footnotes all over this page, and there are only TWO at present. Thank you:) Walking Softly 14:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

You're an angel, User:DO11.10. Thanks for your work on this. Walking Softly 22:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Combining this page with the existing one entitled, "Chlamydia trachomatis"

I think we need to combine this page with the existing one on 'Chlamydia trachomatis', and name the combined page, "Chlamydia trachomatis." When people type in plain ole "Chlamydia" or "Chlamydiae" into the search engine, it should come to "Chlamydia trachomatis," with options to redirect to all the other Chlamydia, and Chlamydophila pages. At present, I think it's just confusing. Thoughts?

In general (although not always) organisms and diseases should and do have separate wikipages (e.g. Tetanus and Clostridium tetani, or Poliomyelitis and Poliovirus) for probably two reasons. Either the disease page got to be too large (in the case of Poliomyelitis, see WP:SUMMARY for details about article size) or because it is simpler to separate two distinct things from one another than it is to combine them (in the case of Tetanus). In keeping with this, the article about Chlamydia should be about the disease, the article about Chlamydia trachomatis should be about the organism, but this does not appear to be the case. I think that the major problem here is that Chlamydia trachomatis doesn't tell me much about the organism Chlamydia trachomatis, but really just contains a long list of diseases that the bacteria can cause.
Please have a look at the above groups of articles. I think that the division in either of these examples is actually less "confusing" given than they both stay reasonably within the bounds of their subject (clearly some amount of overlap is required). I think a better course of action would be to improve and refocus Chlamydia trachomatis on the organism. I suspect that this would alleviate much of the confusion. --DO11.10 22:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I understand this logic and agree with refocusing the Chlamydia trachomatis page, although I think we might need to take a look at the other pages on Chlamydiae species and make sure everything's lining up. However I would also like to add a prominant something somewhere that includes disambiguation and clarification so that people (like the one on the talk page who essentially asks how koalas got a sexually transmitted disease that's normally in humans) understand that "Chlamydia" does not refer only to one species. Kind of an overall summary of the Chlamydiae species, maybe one that appears in a box on each of the Chlamydiae pages? I'm not confused, but I've met many patients and second year med students who are very weirded out when they hear that "Chlamydia" can cause an upper respiratory infection in a child. And it's a very understandable mistake. Walking Softly 00:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Is something like the following at the top of the page what you had in mind?
{{ otheruses4|the sexually transmitted disease|other diseases caused by Chlamydiae species|Chlamydiae}} which gives:
This article is about the sexually transmitted disease. For other diseases caused by Chlamydiae species, see Chlamydiae.
I have not really looked into the all of the sub-articles here. Give me a day or two to look around, and I will try to come up with some sort of working organization here. I totally agree that this page, in particular, is quite confusing, and please feel free to make changes you see fit. But if you could please hold off on any redirecting just yet? Cheers--DO11.10 01:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I think more than that little statement at the top of the page is needed. In addition, it would need to specify Chlamydia trachomatis, and that one "should also see Chlamydiae and Chlamydophila." Moreover, what the article deals with can also be transmitted in a non-sexual fashion (e.g., from mom to child or from genitals to hand to eye), though, yes, it is usually considered an STD. It's just that I would like to somehow say that it is a disease that is usually transmitted sexually instead of a sexually transmitted disease since the whole "how did it get in the baby's eye" gets people sick to their stomachs, but that might be going too far. And I'm rambling.
Don't worry. I won't do anything big. I don't know how to, for one thing. For another, I'm too new to be doing anything like reorganizing great swathes without consulting others. See my response under your other entry (re: intro). Walking Softly 21:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-working

A quick reworking of the intro:

This article is about the sexually transmitted disease. For other diseases caused by Chlamydia species, see Chlamydia pneumoniae and Chlamydophila psittaci.

Chlamydia (from the Greek, χλαμύδος meaning "cloak") is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium, Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia is a major infectious cause of human eye and genital disease.

C. trachomatis is naturally found living only inside human cells and is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in people worldwide — about 2.8 million cases of chlamydia infection occur in the United States each year.[1] Chlamydia can be transmitted during vaginal, anal, or oral sex, and can be passed from an infected mother to her baby during vaginal childbirth. Many people with Chlamydia exhibit no symptoms of infection. Between half and three-quarters of all women who have chlamydia have no symptoms and do not know that they are infected. If untreated, chlamydial infections can cause serious reproductive and other health problems with both short-term and long-term consequences. Chlamydia is easily treated with antibiotics.

Of equal importance, chlamydia infection of the eye is the most common cause of preventable blindness in the world. Blindness occurs as a complication of trachoma (chlamydia conjunctivitis).[2]

The rest of the intro should probably be moved to the Chlamydiae genus article or to the Chlamydia trachomatis article. Thoughts?--DO11.10 02:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm have just found the following, [2] which indicates that there are some clear issues with the taxonomy of some of these articles.--DO11.10 02:23, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There are HUGE taxonomy issues with these articles which is why I was kind of losing my shit before (sorry about that, btw). I've asked User:Arcadian to help b/c I'm clearly way over my head. Here's some of our conversation (copied from his talk page--if that's not OK to do, btw, please erase it. I'm still VERY new and learning the rules).
I am in complete agreement with User:DO11.10, and would oppose the proposed merge with Chlamydia trachomatis. --Arcadian 01:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
As stated in my reply to User:DO11.10, I am no longer in favor of merging the two pages now that I understand the disease vs. organism standard on Wiki. However, I would like your opinion on how best to clarify on the Chlamydia page (and perhaps on all Chlamydiae pages) what is going on with the name that so many find confusing. The intro as it stands seems a bit broad to me if the page is to focus only on the disease caused by Chlamyida trachomatis, and I'm not sure sloshing the explanation in with the regular introduction is the best way to do it.... Walking Softly 02:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for adding the disambiguation page on Chlamydia. May we add to it links to Chlamydophila, Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Chlamydophila pecorum, Chlamydophila psittaci, Chlamydophila abortus, Chlamydophila felis, and Chlamydophila caviae? Chlamydophila, Chlamydophila psittaci, and Chlamydophila pneumonia are particularly important because humans get these diseases and doctors for humans call them CHLAMYDIA such-and-such. In addition, in the popular news, the Chlamydophila diseases for animals still seem to be called Chlamydia (with no species identification) which is confusing for the general public. Walking Softly 19:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Have I missed it, or is there an overall Chlamyida/Chlamydiae/Chlamyophila page somewhere? Do you think the disambiguation page will suffice to clarify this issue? Walking Softly 20:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Haha! I just looked at that chart you found. Nice find. It's absolutely superb and NEEDS to be on Wiki in some form. I'm studying for my boards right now (I'm a third year med student) and have honestly never heard of Chlamydophila psiticci or pneumoniae before all this nonsense. I'm never going to see the term on my boards, I promise. As doctors, we just don't learn it, even though it supposedly was changed 8 years ago. But that chart clarifies everything instantly. If you look at the C. pneumoniae Wiki page, you'll see that WITHIN THE PAGE ITSELF, the species is refers to as both Chlamydia and Chlamydophila. Not cool. So am I making my case for an overall page that clarifies what's going on with the naming of the two genuses and lists all the species involved? I think that will simplify each of the pages that deals with all the species involved. Nice quick internal link on each page and none of this long drawn out business on each individual page. Walking Softly 20:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I rewrote the intro (again), taking out some stuff I'd added in, leaving in most of what you'd put in (I think), but taking into account Arcadian's comments below. I included tons of internal links, and added a citation to the taxonomy image that you found in an effort to clarify. I hope that kind of citation is OK; please undo/edit if it's not. The one thing that's DEFINITELY missing is a sentence that explains what the scope/focus of the page is going to be. I just kind of didn't know what to say. I don't want to be self-referential, but what is left to say? That even though "Chlamydia(l) infection" can refer to infection by any of the Chlamydia species, we're just going to talk about one here because...Wiki isn't read by pigs and we're not so keen on vets? I don't think that would go over well;) B/c there's already a page for C. suri and the other one that's harder to spell? Anyhoo, I'll leave it up to you. I hope I'm not just massacring everything around here. Walking Softly 03:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The taxonomy issues really need to be addressed on the class, family and genus pages, not here. I think that the phylum article Chlamydiae would be the optimal place for an "overall page that clarifies what's going on with the naming of the two genuses and lists all the species involved."
I think that Arcadian's change to "Chlamydia infection" is helpful, but ultimately might not be needed due to the reclassification of the genus. WP:NAME specifically states "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists." I think that most people looking for Chlamydia are interested in the STD, and not the other species.
No need to fret, everyone worries that they are massacring the work of others at first. Your concerns about this page are clearly founded and you are doing a fine job. Cheers--DO11.10 18:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
As long as the intro to the page makes it clear that it covers the infection and not the genus, if you want to rename it back, I won't object. --Arcadian 03:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Staining

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pap_smear_showing_clamydia_in_the_vacuoles_500x_H%26E.jpg

I don't know what this is, but it's not chlamydia if it's H&E staining. Chlamydia in culture has to be stained with Geimsa stains or direct fluorescence antibody (see http://eyemicrobiology.upmc.com/Chlamydia.htm). If you disagree and want to say that H&E is possible, please reference a site. I really don't think it's possible. Geimsa can look like H&E, and I'm not the best with lab stuff, so I don't want to be the authority on this one, but I really think the picture and caption should at least be checked with an expert. Walking Softly 22:58, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, I don't think it should be called a Pap smear. That traditionally refers to the sample and test for changes related to cervical cancer. Besides, at this level, I don't know that you can tell it's a Pap smear. Could be a sample from a guy's penis or a kid's eye. Cell culture would be a safer term and the only one I've ever heard used, though I'm not an Ob-gyn attending nor a Pathologist, so again, I don't want to come down hard on this one. Hey, maybe it IS a pap smear and stained with H&E, and I'm just too naive to know that that's somehow possible. Walking Softly 23:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chlamydophila

I disagree with the recent change stating that "Chlamydophila Infections" (e.g., Psittacosis) are also known as "Chlamydia", using MeSH as the reference. Please look closer at this link, and this one. (They could both be described as Chlamydiaceae infections, but I don't think such a page is needed at this time.) --Arcadian 00:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Technically, you are correct, and I suppose Wiki should be putting out the information on what is correct instead of bowing to the pressure of the physicians and popular media of the world who insist on calling it by the old name. I had already been the sites you linked to--and had actually added them as references, but then took them out when I realized that they don't include anything but the human species, and actually only 2 of them. The chart User:DC011.1 found (see above) is much better. Also, check out the link I included on this Talk page that explains the debate. Unfortunately, neither is a particularly good reference for this (article) page. At any rate, I will rewrite that particular sentence (if you have not already), but I would still very much like you to include the individual Chlamydophila species (or at least Chlamydophila) on the disambiguation page you created. A good part of the world is not yet up to speed on this issue. Thank you for your continued consideration of this topic. Walking Softly 02:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to expand the disambiguation page as needed (a style guideline is available at Wikipedia:Disambiguation.) --Arcadian 05:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)