Blocked fallopian tubes mean an egg can no longer reach the uterus, usually because of scar tissue left by an infection. In a Swedish cohort, infertility caused by tubal damage occurred in 10.8 percent of women with confirmed pelvic inflammatory disease, against 0 percent of controls (Weström, 1992). An STI test does not measure that damage.
That last point is what I want to set straight here.
We sell STI tests, so this feels odd to write down. But if your question is about your fertility, our test isn't the answer. That question belongs with a GP or a gynaecologist.
Below you'll read exactly where that line sits.
What are blocked fallopian tubes?
A fallopian tube is a narrow channel connecting the ovary to the uterus. If the inside gets damaged, it can narrow or close off completely. An egg and a sperm cell then never meet, and doctors speak of a tubal factor in fertility.
Blocked is a word from everyday speech, by the way.
A gynaecologist's letter is more likely to say occluded tubes, tubal pathology or hydrosalpinx. That last one means a closed tube has filled with fluid. It describes the same problem, just written down more precisely.
One closed tube is a different situation from both. With one working tube a pregnancy can still happen. It often takes longer.
Scar tissue is the most common cause, but not the only one. Endometriosis, earlier abdominal surgery and a burst appendix can leave damage too. So an STI is far from always the explanation.
How that kind of pelvic inflammation starts is covered in pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
How do you know if your tubes are blocked?
Usually you don't notice anything. Blocked tubes cause no pain and no discharge. Many women only find out when getting pregnant does not work, and certainty then comes from imaging a gynaecologist arranges, for example an HSG using a contrast fluid.
There is no self-test for this.
No test you do at home looks inside your fallopian tubes. That holds for blood tests just as much as for a swab. We can't do it either, and anyone suggesting otherwise is promising something they do not deliver.
What can be a signal: a pelvic infection in the past, an ectopic pregnancy, or a chlamydia found late. Those things can raise the chance. They prove nothing.
Picture this: you're 31 and you have been trying for a year. At 22 you had a chlamydia infection, picked up in a routine check, with not a single symptom. That is exactly the kind of detail your GP wants to hear.
What is the role of chlamydia?
Chlamydia is the most common infectious cause of tubal damage. The bacterium can travel upward and cause inflammation there that leaves scar tissue behind. The unpleasant part is that this often happens silently, without a woman ever knowing she had the infection.
Researchers have used antibody blood testing for decades to study that link. In women with tubal damage, traces of a past chlamydia infection are found more often than in women without (den Hartog, 2006).
Those measurements say something about a group, not about you.
Within a fertility work-up they can help estimate how likely tubal pathology is. They do not replace imaging (Mouton, 2002). So this too belongs with a gynaecologist, not with a home test.
The Dutch national institute RIVM has reported for years that chlamydia is the most frequently found STI here. The numbers are highest among people under twenty-five. That is exactly the age at which having children still feels far away.
And then the point I see stepped over most often.
Antibiotics clear the bacterium. They do not undo scar tissue. Treating later helps against the infection, but it does not reverse damage that is already there.
There is more on that in chlamydia complications and infertility.
What does an STI test say about this, and what does it not?
An STI test answers one question: is there an infection in your body right now. It says nothing about the state of your tubes, because that is a question about structure and not about bacteria. Both questions are perfectly valid, but they belong at two different doors.
This table lays them side by side.
| Your question | What an STI test says about it | Where the answer does sit |
|---|---|---|
| Do I have chlamydia or gonorrhoea right now? | Exactly what the test is built for | A targeted STI test, result within a few days |
| Are my fallopian tubes damaged? | Nothing, a test does not look inside your tubes | Imaging arranged by a gynaecologist |
| Did I have chlamydia in the past? | An ordinary test measures the present only | GP, antibody work sits within fertility care |
| Will I get pregnant? | An STI test says nothing about that | GP, and a gynaecologist if needed |
| Can I still prevent damage now? | A test can find an infection that is treatable now | Treatment always runs through a doctor |
The second row is the most important of the five. If you came here worried about your fertility, ordering a test is the longest route to your answer.
If your question really is about an infection now, you can get checked with us through a test for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and trichomonas. That runs without an appointment and without anything reaching your GP records.
Can you still get pregnant with blocked tubes?
Often yes, and that deserves more emphasis than it gets. In the Swedish cohort, 84 percent of women with confirmed pelvic inflammatory disease did manage to conceive. For 16.0 percent it did not work out, against 2.7 percent of the controls (Weström, 1992).
Read those figures carefully.
They describe women whose inflammation was confirmed by laparoscopy. So this is not a risk carried by everyone who once had chlamydia. For that much larger group, numbers like these do not exist.
There is a second point in the same study. Of first pregnancies after the laparoscopy, 9.1 percent were ectopic, against 1.4 percent among the controls (Weström, 1992). A damaged tube can hold on to a fertilised egg.
Gynaecologists therefore often check in early during pregnancy with women who have had a pelvic infection. What else is possible is a conversation to have with them. That conversation belongs there, not on a testing page.
If you first want to know how STIs and trying for a baby relate, read STIs and trying to conceive.
What can you do now?
It depends which question you actually have. If you are worried about an infection right now, testing is quick and sensible. If it is about your fertility or damage from the past, the GP is the first step and not a test.
Take three things into that appointment. Whether you ever had an STI and when. Whether you ever saw a doctor about abdominal pain, and how long you have been trying.
That sounds small, but it can easily save you a consultation.
Thuisarts.nl explains in plain language what a GP does when getting pregnant is not working. The Dutch GP standard on the STI consultation describes how GPs here look at STI symptoms. Both read better than a forum.
If your partner is reading along, get checked together. When one of you tests positive, the other is usually next in line.
Still unsure? Call your GP this week with one concrete question: is further investigation of my fallopian tubes sensible in my situation.
Further reading
For the inflammation that precedes the damage: salpingitis and endometritis.
For the infection that sits behind it most often: chlamydia in women.
References
- Weström L, et al. Pelvic inflammatory disease and fertility. A cohort study of 1,844 women with laparoscopically verified disease and 657 control women with normal laparoscopic results. Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 1992;19(4):185-92. PMID 1411832.
- den Hartog JE, et al. Chlamydia trachomatis-associated tubal factor subfertility: Immunogenetic aspects and serological screening. Human Reproduction Update, 2006. PMID 16832042.
- Mouton JW, et al. Tubal factor pathology caused by Chlamydia trachomatis: the role of serology. International Journal of STD and AIDS, 2002. PMID 12537722.
- RIVM, Sexually transmitted infections in the Netherlands, annual report. Accessed July 2026.
- NHG-Standaard Het soa-consult, Dutch College of General Practitioners. Accessed July 2026.
- Thuisarts.nl, I am not getting pregnant. Accessed July 2026.
Every test result includes a professional assessment from a BIG-registered doctor. For treatment decisions, discuss your results with your GP.
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