Treatment for gonorrhea

Several antibiotics can successfully cure gonorrhea in adults and adolescents. It is important to take all of the prescribed medication to cure gonorrhea. Treated efficiently, antibiotics can cure 95%  to 99% of all cases.

Some Treatment for Gonorrhea options mentioned in the CDC Report are:

• Cefixime 400 mg orally in a single dose
• Ceftriaxone 125 mg IM in a single dose
• Ciprofloxacin 500 mg orally in a single dose
• Ofloxacin 400 mg orally in a single dose, PLUS Azithromycin 1 g orally  in a single dose
• Doxycycline 100 mg orally twice a day for 7 days

The doctor may prescribe a single-dose injection of an antibiotic such as ceftriaxone (Rocephin) or a single-dose pill such as ciprofloxacin (Cipro).

If you are pregnant or younger than 18, the doctor will usually prescribe the shot instead of the pill.

Drug-Resistant Strains

Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea are increasing in many parts of the world, including the United States, and successful treatment of gonorrhea is becoming more difficult. Previously, a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones (examples are ciprofloxacin (Cipro, Cipro XR), ofloxacin (Floxin), and levofloxacin (Levaquin) was widely used to treat gonorrhea. Beause of increasing resistance of many tested samples of n. gonorrheae to the fluoroquinolone drugs, the CDC now recommends that only one class of antibiotics, the cephalosphorins, be used to treat gonorrheal infections.

Re-Infection

People who have had gonorrhea  and have been treated  can get the disease again if they have sexual contact with persons infected with gonorrhea. If a person's gonorrhea symptoms continue even after receiving  treatment, he or she should return to a doctor to be reevaluated.

Other Sexually-Transmitted Diseases (STDs)

Persons with gonorrhea symptoms should also be treated for other sexually-transmitted diseases or infections. Many people with gonorrhea also have chlamydia, another STD, antibiotics for both infections are usually given together.

Permanent Damage

As noted, elsewhere, although medication will stop the infection, it will not repair whatever permanent damage done by the disease. For instance, if the complications to untreated gonorrhea symptoms rendered a person infertile or prone to ectopic pregnancy, the antibiotic medications can no longer reverse the damage.

Serious and permanent complications are avoided, if gonorrhea symptoms are detected early and treated immediately. If you experienced any of the gonorrhea symptoms described in the Home page of this site and suspect an infection, don't waste time. Call your doctor immediately.

How will your doctor determine if you have gonorrhea infection?

In order to do this, the doctor will conduct a physical examination. Gonorrhea infection is often indicated by pain or tenderness in the vaginal area in women and a pus-filled discharge from the vagina or penis, along with high white blood cell count and fever.

Diagnosis: Gonorrhea Infection?

The most reliable method of detecting gonorrhea infection is laboratory culture testing, of course. The doctor or nurse will take a sample from the discharge or from parts of the body most likely to be infected like the urethra (where you pass urine), the cervix (opening to the womb), the rectum, or the throat. This sample is then taken to the laboratory and incubated to see if the gonorrhea bacteria will grow from the sample. Normally, it takes about 2 days for the gonorrhea infection to be detected using this method.

Mot hospitals today and many doctors' offices have urine or discharge kits that are used for screening gonorrhea infection. The procedure, called a Gram stain, allows the doctor to see the gonorrhea bacterium under a microscope from the sample (the stain). This procedure is deemed not be as sensitive as laboratory culture testing but is reliable enough for screening purposes.