Gonorrhea
What is gonorrhea?
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). It is a bacterial infection of the urethra in men and the urethra, cervix, or both in women. Gonorrhea can also infect the rectum, anus, throat, pelvic organs, and rarely, the conjunctiva, which is the membrane that lines the eyelid and eye surface.
You may hear some people refer to gonorrhea as the clap, drip, or GC.
Women are at higher risk of getting gonorrhea than men.
What causes gonorrhea?
Gonorrhea is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It can be spread during vaginal, anal, or oral sex with an infected partner. A pregnant woman may pass the infection to her newborn during delivery.
Gonorrhea can be transmitted any time by an infected person, whether or not symptoms are present. An infected person is contagious until he or she has been treated.
Having a gonorrhea infection once does not protect you from getting another infection in the future. A new exposure to gonorrhea will cause a new infection, even if you were previously treated and cured.
What are the symptoms?
About half of those who are infected don't have symptoms. People who do not have symptoms may unknowingly transmit gonorrhea infections to their sex partners.
The throat, anus, urethra, and rectum are common areas of infection in both men and women. If symptoms are present, they may include painful urination, anal itching or bleeding, or abnormal discharge from the penis or vagina. Gonorrhea infection in the throat doesn't usually cause symptoms, such as a sore throat.
In men, symptoms are usually serious enough that they will cause a man to seek medical attention before complications occur. In women, the early symptoms are sometimes so mild that they are mistaken for a bladder infection or vaginal infection.
The incubation period—the time from exposure to gonorrhea until symptoms develop—is usually 2 to 5 days, but sometimes symptoms may not develop for up to 30 days.
How is gonorrhea diagnosed?
Your health professional will ask you questions about your medical history and will do a physical exam. He or she will ask you questions about your risk factors for STDs. Risk factors for gonorrhea include:
- Being a man who has unprotected sex with other men.
- Having unprotected sexual contact (not using condoms).
- Starting sexual activity before age 18.
Lab tests must be done to confirm gonorrhea infection. These tests may include taking samples of fluid from the affected areas (such as the urethra, rectum or throat) or taking urine samples.
How is it treated?
Gonorrhea is treated with antibiotics. Antibiotic treatment, if taken exactly as directed, normally cures gonorrhea infections. If antibiotics are not taken properly, the infection will not be cured. Prompt antibiotic treatment also prevents the spread of the infection and decreases the risk of complications, such aspelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
Avoid any sexual contact while you are being treated for an STD. People taking a single dose of medication should not have any sexual contact for 7 days after treatment so the medication will have time to work. If you are diagnosed with gonorrhea, any sex partners you have had within the previous 60 days need to be tested and treated. They should seek treatment whether they have symptoms or not to prevent the spread of, or reinfection with, gonorrhea.
Many people who have gonorrhea also have chlamydia, a similar sexually transmitted disease. When both infections are present, medication treatment includes antibiotics that are effective in treating both chlamydia and gonorrhea.