Symptoms, forms and treatment of chlamydial conjunctivitis

1 Types of pathology

In adults of both sexes, the ailment can appear as:

1. Trachoma and paratrachoma.
2. The so-called basin conjunctivitis.
3. Inflammations on the vascular membranes of the eye - uveitis.
4. Development of conjunctivitis in Reiter's syndrome.
5. Epicleritis caused by chlamydia.
6. Inflammation of meibomian eye glands in the transition of chlamydia from animal to human.

Chlamydial conjunctivitis often affects newborn babies. At them this disease can cause occurrence of a symptomatology of a chlamydial pneumonia, an eustachyte, an acute otitis, a rhinitis. Chlamydia can be damaged in severe form by the infant's respiratory system.

Sexually active women or men are infected with the disease. Some of them suffer from clamidiosis of the genital organs and infect their sexual partners. All members of the family of this patient, including children, can get sick.

2 Symptoms of the disease

Symptoms of the disease are most often found when checking the eyes for sluggish conjunctivitis or blepharitis( an inflammatory disease of the edge of the eyelids, which in most cases is chronic).

Since chlamydial eye damage usually does not manifest itself, its detection is possible because of relapse of the disease. The appearance of the disease depends on the following factors:

1. The location of the affected area.
2. Period of the presence of chlamydia in the patient's body.
3. Individual features of the reaction to a penetrated infection.

The period of incubation of an ailment in an adult leaves from 2 days to a week, but sometimes stretches for a month. In the first period of the disease, the lesion is localized on one eye, but then for 2-5 days it spreads to the second eye.

In this case, the patient is fixed fear of light, redness on the mucous structures of the eye, a small allocation of tears.

Many patients, starting from the third day of the disease, develop inflammation of the lymph nodes that are located in front of the ear shell on the side of the initial lesion. Most often this process proceeds without pain, but inflammation of Eustachian tubes can occur.

Chlamydia in the eyes can occur in acute and chronic forms. With the first type of conjunctivitis caused by chlamydia, the following symptoms are observed:

1. Pronounced eyelid edema.
2. From the conjunctival cavity begin to emerge abundant purulent discharge.
3. There is swelling in the conjunctiva of both eyelids.
4. The cornea is affected by small areas of edema and large areas of pus on dense tissue sites.
5. Follicles appear mainly in the lower eyelid in the form of small tubercles.
6. 30% of patients suffer from an increase in the upper eyelid of the conjunctiva and a tightening of the structure of its tissues.

When passing from an acute stage to a chronic one, one can observe such a symptomatology:

1. The eyelid edema becomes moderate.
2. Reduces seals on the connective tissue of the conjunctiva.
3. Slight discharge of mucus from one eye may appear. Less often this process occurs in both eyes.
4. If the diagnosis is incorrect and the treatment of conjunctivitis with different antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiallergic medicines begins, this often leads to the habituation of chlamydia and the development of immunity against these drugs, and then to the change in the symptoms of the disease itself.

After the transfer of this disease, there may be zones of scarring on the cornea and conjunctiva. Sometimes this leads to the development of blindness. Relapses of the disease can be, but in most cases with proper treatment methods they are absent.

3 Diagnosis and treatment

Diagnosis is performed by visual inspection and laboratory tests. A scraping from the eye is made to find the chlamydia in it and various serological tests.

The main thing is to undergo an examination in time, as the treatment is delayed and does not always give positive results when the disease is detected in the late stage. Chlamydia is cured mainly with antibiotics, which are prescribed after testing for the sensitivity of parasites to a particular drug.

If therapy to this patient has already been carried out with the help of any drug, then in case of relapse it must be changed to another antibiotic, since chlamydia has already developed endurance to the previously used medication.

These intracellular parasites are usually cured with tetracycline antibiotics, fluoroquinolones or macrolides.

The medicine is chosen by the doctor for each patient individually. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the characteristics of the patient's body, the presence of other ailments. If the patient is a pregnant woman, the selection of antibiotics should be done taking into account their effect on the growing fetus.

Therefore, a person with chlamydial conjunctivitis should not engage in self-medication, as this often leads to complications, which are then difficult to treat.

In this case, the patient often receives in addition and dysbacteriosis, since antibiotics destroy the normal microflora in the intestinal tract. Women may also have a lesion in the vagina due to the death of bacteria living there.

The dosage of the medication and the duration of therapy are determined by the attending physician. The usual course of therapy lasts up to 3 weeks. Assign eye drops and antihistamines. After the completion of the course of treatment, the patient must pass control tests in the laboratory. Chlamydia of any kind is considered quite a dangerous disease, so the patient must comply with all the recommendations of the doctor, otherwise a relapse is possible.