Maybe because it’s so difficult to pronounce, gonorrhea (say “gone-o-RHEE-ah”) has some cutesy nicknames. You may have heard jokes or stories about people catching The Clap or getting a dose of The Drip. But there’s nothing cute or funny about gonorrhea, a very common and serious sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Like chlamydia, gonorrhea is caused by a bacterium that thrives in moist, warm areas of the body, including your genitals and reproductive tract, your throat, and the rectum. Most often, gonorrhea is spread during intercourse — vaginal, oral, or anal. Hear that, all of you who believe oral sex is “safe”? You won’t be producing any pregnancies via oral sex, but getting gonorrhea of the throat is a real risk.
Watch for It
Unfortunately, gonorrhea may be tough to spot and it’s quite common — over a million cases are reported in the U.S. each year, most from people between the ages of 15 and 30. The early symptoms, which usually appear within 2 to 10 days after contact with an infected partner, are often so mild that women, especially, may not notice any problems. You may remain symptom-free for months, more time for the gonorrhea bugs to get into your body, and do their damage. However, women should watch for:
- a painful or burning sensation when urinating
- yellow, greenish, and/or bloody vaginal discharge
- abdominal pain
- bleeding between periods
- vomiting
- fever
- swelling and tenderness of the vulva
Lucky for them, men usually display more symptoms than women when they have gonorrhea. Men should beware of:
- discharge from the penis
- burning sensations during urination may be severe
- more frequent urination than usual
Both men and women should be on watch if they have anal discharge or itching, sometimes accompanied by painful bowel movements — this may indicate a gonorrheal infection of the rectum. Itching and soreness of the throat with difficulty swallowing food can indicate a gonorrheal throat infection.
Stop It in Its Tracks!
If left untreated, gonorrhea can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in women, which vastly increases the risk of ectopic (fallopian tube) pregnancies and sterility. Women who contract gonorrhea when they are pregnant are upping their chances of premature labor and stillbirth, while men may suffer from swollen testicles and penis. Infants exposed to gonorrhea in the birth canal may go blind. Both sexes may contract arthritis, skin problems, and other infections caused by the spread of gonorrhea within the body.
Luckily, gonorrhea is easy to treat when it’s diagnosed with the examination of cultures taken from the infected area. Your clinician can give you an injection of penicillin or other antibiotics, or you may take them in pill form, which cures the infection 100%.
How to protect yourself? Gonorrhea is particularly risky because often someone carrying the infection doesn’t know they have it, so they spread it to their partners and never realize it. Abstinence is the only way to avoid all STIs, but using a condom for any act of intercourse, be it oral, vaginal or anal, is also darned effective. See your health care provider regularly if you are sexually active, and get tested for all STIs, every time.
Playing it safe may seem like a pain when you are healthy — but it’s way more of a pain contracting a dangerous or deadly infection.