Getting your partners treated for chlamydia

If you’ve been diagnosed with chlamydia, there is good news. Your doctor or health care provider can prescribe medication that can treat the sexually transmitted disease.

Now for the bad news: It’s possible that you—and your sex partners—can get reinfected and pass the STD to others. 

If chlamydia goes untreated, it can lead to serious health complications. In men, it can lead to prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate gland) and epididymitis (inflammation of a tube at the back of the testicle that carries sperm). In women, chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, decrease fertility, and complicate pregnancy. 

That’s why it’s important to get treatment for your partners, regardless if they get tested or not. Even if a partner gets tested for chlamydia, they could have what’s known as a “false negative” test result. This happens when a person has the STD but it’s too early to be detected by testing. 

But there’s more good news: If you’ve been diagnosed with chlamydia, there’s an easy way to get treatment for your partners. It’s called Expedited Partner Therapy, or EPT, and it allows your doctor to prescribe medication for people you’ve had sex with in the last 60 days—without the need of examining your partner(s). The doctor simply writes “Expedited Partner Therapy,” “E.P.T.” or “EPT” in place of the name and address on a prescription, which you or your partner can take to any pharmacy in Massachusetts. EPT also allows your doctor to give or prescribe extra doses of medication for you to give to your sex partners.  

Ask your doctor or health care provider about EPT. If they’re unfamiliar with EPT or if you have questions, contact the Massachusetts Department of Public Health at 617-983-6940 or ept@mass.gov.