Chlamydia in men is cured with a short course of antibiotics, typically a seven-day regimen taken by mouth. The infection clears reliably with proper treatment, but there are important steps before and after the prescription that determine whether you actually stay clear of it. Here’s what the full process looks like.
Antibiotics Are the Only Cure
There is no home remedy, supplement, or over-the-counter product that eliminates chlamydia. The bacteria that cause the infection live inside your cells, where your immune system has difficulty reaching them. Without antibiotics, the infection persists indefinitely. Garlic, oregano oil, colloidal silver, and similar products you may see promoted online have zero clinical evidence supporting their use against chlamydia.
The standard treatment is a week-long course of doxycycline, an antibiotic taken twice daily for seven days. This is the preferred first-line option because it has the highest cure rate for infections at all body sites, including urethral, rectal, and throat infections. An alternative is a single, one-time dose of azithromycin, though this option has fallen out of favor as the primary recommendation in recent years due to slightly lower effectiveness, particularly for rectal infections. Your provider will choose the right antibiotic based on where the infection is and whether you have any drug allergies.
You need a prescription. That means either visiting a clinic, your primary care provider, an urgent care center, or using a telehealth service. Many sexual health clinics offer same-day testing and treatment, sometimes at low cost or on a sliding scale. Some states also allow pharmacists to prescribe treatment for chlamydia directly.
What to Expect During Treatment
If you’re on the seven-day course, you take one pill in the morning and one in the evening. Doxycycline can cause stomach upset, so taking it with food helps. Avoid lying down for at least 30 minutes after swallowing the pill, as it can irritate your esophagus. You should also avoid dairy products, antacids, and iron supplements within two hours of your dose, since these interfere with absorption.
Symptoms like burning during urination or penile discharge typically start improving within a few days, but you need to finish all seven days even if you feel completely normal partway through. Stopping early risks leaving the bacteria partially alive and potentially harder to treat.
You should avoid all sexual contact for at least seven days after completing treatment (or seven days after a single-dose regimen). During this window, you can still transmit the infection even though the antibiotics are working. If your symptoms haven’t fully resolved by the time you finish the course, hold off on sexual activity and contact your provider.
You May Not Have Symptoms
Many men with chlamydia have no symptoms at all. The most common signs, when they do appear, are a burning sensation while urinating, unusual discharge from the penis, and pain or swelling in one or both testicles. But a large portion of infections are completely silent, which is why routine screening matters if you’re sexually active with new or multiple partners.
If you were diagnosed through screening rather than because of symptoms, the treatment is exactly the same. The absence of symptoms doesn’t mean the infection is less serious or that it will resolve on its own.
What Happens If You Don’t Treat It
Left untreated, chlamydia in men can spread to the epididymis, the coiled tube behind each testicle where sperm matures. This condition, called epididymitis, causes significant pain, swelling, and in some cases can affect fertility. Untreated chlamydia can also trigger reactive arthritis, a painful inflammatory condition affecting the joints, eyes, and urinary tract that can persist for months.
The infection also continues to be transmissible to sexual partners the entire time it goes untreated. In partners with a cervix, untreated chlamydia carries even higher risks, including pelvic inflammatory disease and long-term fertility problems.
Your Partners Need Treatment Too
This is the step most people skip, and it’s the main reason reinfection rates are so high. Anyone you’ve had sexual contact with in the 60 days before your diagnosis (or your most recent partner, if it’s been longer) needs to be treated, whether or not they have symptoms. If they aren’t treated, they will very likely pass the infection right back to you.
If your partner can’t easily get to a provider, many states allow something called expedited partner therapy. This means your doctor can write an extra prescription that you physically hand to your partner, so they can start treatment without needing their own appointment first. Not every state permits this, so ask your provider whether it’s an option where you live.
The conversation with a partner is uncomfortable, but reinfection is common and entirely preventable with this one step.
Retesting After Treatment
You do not need a “test of cure” immediately after finishing antibiotics, as long as you completed the full course and your symptoms have resolved. Testing too early, specifically within four weeks of finishing treatment, can produce a false positive. Dead bacteria may still be detectable by the highly sensitive tests used for chlamydia, even though the infection is actually gone.
What you do need is a retest roughly three months after treatment. The CDC recommends this for everyone treated for chlamydia, regardless of whether you believe your partners were also treated. The purpose is to catch reinfection, which is the most common reason for a second positive result. Scheduling this follow-up appointment on the same day you pick up your prescription makes it much more likely to actually happen.
Rectal and Throat Infections
Chlamydia doesn’t only infect the urethra. Men who have receptive oral or anal sex can develop infections in the throat or rectum. These infections are frequently asymptomatic and won’t show up on a standard urine test. If you’ve had oral or anal exposure, let your provider know so they can swab the correct sites.
The seven-day doxycycline course is particularly important for rectal chlamydia, where it outperforms the single-dose alternative by a meaningful margin. Throat infections also respond to the standard regimen, though pharyngeal chlamydia is less common in men than rectal infection.
Preventing Reinfection
Chlamydia does not produce lasting immunity. You can be reinfected immediately after successful treatment if you’re exposed again. Consistent condom use significantly reduces transmission risk but doesn’t eliminate it entirely, since the bacteria can be present on skin and mucous membranes not covered by a barrier.
If you’re sexually active with new partners, annual screening is a straightforward way to catch infections early. For men who have sex with men, screening every three to six months is generally recommended depending on the number of partners. Testing is a simple urine sample for urethral infections, with swabs added for throat and rectal sites when relevant.