Chlamydia is a super common sexually transmitted infection common during the teens, twenties and early thirties. Arthritis causes inflammation and pain at various joints and is not common until a little older in life. How are these two related?
There is a condition called, “undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy” that presents itself as inflammatory back pain, single-sided or alternating buttock pain, inflammation at the point where a tendon/ligament attaches to a bone, arthritis of the small joints, swollen fingers or toes, heel pain, fatigue, and/or eye inflammation. The HLA-B27 test is positive only 20-25% of the time.
In the 2009 May issue of Arthritis and Rheumatism, researchers found 62% of the patients to test positive for a Chlamydia infection either in their blood or synovial fluid. Chlamydia is common in Reactive Arthritis which is another form of spondyloarthropathy.
If you suspect, or have been diagnosed with, a spondyloarthropathy, consider having a Rheumatologist test you for Chlamydia in case it has been the cause for your pain all these years.