Hidden forms of gonorrhea and how to treat them

Gonorrhea is one of the oldest known and fastest-growing sexually transmitted diseases. According to statistics, a third of the world's population is ill with some kind of STD, and another third have already suffered them.

As for gonorrhea itself, every year this disease is diagnosed in more than six million patients - despite the fact that not everyone seeks medical help, while endangering the health of others. After all, gonorrhea (or, as the disease is also called by the people, gonorrhea) is a contagious disease, and most often it can be caught during promiscuous sexual intercourse with the practice of unprotected sex.

The largest number of cases are young people who have an active sex life. I must say that with the advent of the deadly disease of AIDS, people began to be more careful about their safety, which slightly reduced both the total number of STDs and the incidence of gonorrhea compared to the almost epidemic that was observed in the eighties of the last century.

Causes of gonorrhea

As for the disease itself, gonorrhea is a fairly widespread and rather dangerous disease that belongs to the venereal group. The causative agents of gonorrhea include Neisser's gonococcus (in Latin Neisseria gonorrhoeae), the peculiarities of which are that it can quickly die while in the external environment (under favorable conditions, it dies in two hours), but when it is inside the body (located intracellularly, in leukocytes ) becomes extremely stable. Also, gonococci are able to form forms that are resistant to antibiotics (spontaneously or under the influence of adverse conditions), and even produce a special enzyme that can inhibit the effects of antibiotics in gonorrhea. Also, there is no innate or acquired immunity to this disease, which means that everyone can be equally at risk, and the same person can be infected multiple times. With this disease, the mucous membranes of the genitourinary and urinary organs are affected, but, in addition, gonorrhea can affect the mucous membranes in the mouth, eyes, and rectum. Quite often (more than fifty percent of all cases) gonorrhea can occur in combination with other genitourinary diseases.

This disease increases the likelihood of ectopic pregnancy and infertility, and the child can also become infected from the mother during childbirth, in the process of passing through the birth canal. It is the infection of newborns with gonorrhea that causes blindness in sixty percent of babies - in addition to the eyes, newborns can also experience inflammation of the respiratory organs, rectum, and less often blood poisoning. It should be borne in mind that with gonorrhea in women, the threat of future infertility and the occurrence of ectopic pregnancy increases. In more than half of the cases, the disease is combined with other serious lesions of the genitourinary system.

Information about how gonorrhea is transmitted is no longer a secret: the main source of infection in adults is unprotected sex with a carrier of the infection. Moreover, you can catch the disease both during vaginal sexual contact, and during oral, anal sex, and even with ordinary contact of naked genitals. The probability of contracting gonorrhea from a sick woman in men is about twenty percent with a single unprotected contact (protection means a condom and antiseptics used during sex), from twenty percent to eighty percent with repeated (more than four times) sexual contact with a carrier. Women are more at risk of infection - they have a seventy percent chance of getting sick after just one sex with a carrier of gonorrhea.

Much less often, but the disease can also be obtained by the household method - if you grossly violate hygiene standards, being in close contact with a sick person. You can become infected by using the carrier's bedding or underwear, his washcloth, towel, or other personal items that he recently used himself. It is characteristic that the risk of getting sick by household means is more relevant for women, often girls can become infected in this way.

In addition to this method, as well as infection of newborns during childbirth, gonorrhea in children can be detected after rape.

Symptoms and effects of gonorrhea

Usually, the incubation period after infection with gonorrhea lasts from three to seven days (very rarely, but it can take up to a month). After that, the symptoms of the disease appear: burning and pain when urinating (felt in the urethra), after which, after a couple of days, swelling of the ureata appears, purulent discharge and sores can also be observed.

It should be noted that the symptoms of gonorrhea in men and the symptoms of the same disease in women can differ significantly. For example, the symptoms of gonorrhea in women can be almost completely absent or be so insignificant that the woman does not even know that she is sick and, accordingly, does not go to the doctor (which is dangerous and threatens with complications in the future). It should be remembered that it is the asymptomatic disease that poses the greatest threat of infection to others.

If we talk about the signs of gonorrhea in men, then the most obvious of them include the already mentioned burning, pain and discomfort during urination (in the penis area). Then there is the appearance of discharge from the penis in the form of a mucous fluid, which later becomes purulent and may even contain blood particles. The color of the discharge during this period is dirty yellow. The scrotum may also feel sore and swollen.

There are more signs of gonorrhea in women, but all of them are, as it were, indirect and do not directly indicate that a woman is ill with gonorrhea. First of all, you should be concerned about the appearance of a discharge of a yellow-green hue with an unpleasant odor from the vagina - even if the diagnosis of gonorrhea is not confirmed later, this symptom directly indicates a malfunction in the body. Another sign of gonorrhea can be spotting between periods. Also, indirect evidence of the presence of gonorrhea in a woman's body can include pain felt during sex, pulling pains in the lower abdomen, felt for a long period, fever, nausea and vomiting. One of the reasons for the inability to conceive can also be the STD gonorrhea.

There are also general symptoms of gonorrhea, which are equally noted in patients of both sexes. These may be sensations of sore throat, which indicates that the infection has entered the pharyngeal mucosa. If the eyes are irritated, most likely the infection has got into the eyes. If pain is felt in the rectum (as well as purulent discharge from the anus), these may be signs of infection with gonorrhea of ​​the rectum. There is a chance (albeit low, only 2%) that gonorrhea from the throat, rectum, or genitals can spread to organs throughout the body.

Also, gonorrhea can be classified into separate forms - these are fresh gonorrhea, chronic and gonococcal. In the first case, fresh gonorrhea can be divided according to the form of the course into acute gonorrhea, subacute and torpid (that is, asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic). Gonorrhea passes into the chronic form if you do not contact a specialist for more than two months - in this state, the disease covers all nearby organs and is characterized by alternating acute periods and remissions. The form of chronic gonorrhea is especially dangerous with severe complications. Gonococcal carriage (or latent gonorrhea) occurs when the pathogen does not manifest itself in any way, the disease proceeds completely without any characteristic symptoms. In men, an abscess of the prostate gland (occurs infrequently, but is very difficult to proceed), as well as a periurethral abscess, can begin.

As a complication, lymphangitis of the penis and inguinal, cooperitis, chronic prostatitis and orchiepididymitis are also diagnosed. As a complication after gonorrhea, there may also be a narrowing of the urethra and an obstructive form of male infertility (due to blockage of the vas deferens). In women with chronic gonorrhea, the infection can move from the cervix to its mucous membrane, fallopian tubes and ovaries, as a result, infertility occurs. Due to the often latent course of the disease in women, the process becomes chronic and causes damage to a variety of organs (depending on where the lesion is located). Gonorrhea for pregnant women threatens with miscarriages, fetal death, placental insufficiency, the threat of postpartum infection and chorioamnionitis.

Diagnosis of gonorrhea

Considering that the disease can occur in a latent form (in men as well, although less often in women), it is very important to quickly and timely diagnose the disease. In this regard, women should be aware of the need for scheduled examinations by a gynecologist, it will not be superfluous to have an examination after unprotected intercourse with an unfamiliar (or unreliable) partner. Even if a patient has all the described symptoms that he associates with gonorrhea, it is possible to determine whether this is true only with the help of laboratory tests.

At a doctor's appointment, he will first of all listen to your complaints, then he will conduct an examination. After that, as a rule, a smear is taken for gonorrhea - in women it is taken from the cervical canal, and in men from the urethra. The material is then placed on a glass slide, stained and placed under a microscope to detect gonococci. Material for research can also be taken from the rectum and/or oropharynx.

An alternative test for gonorrhea is culture. In addition to identifying the presence of the disease itself, it allows the sensitivity of identified gonococci to different groups of antibiotics, thus determining the best treatment regimen. In an advanced state of the disease (which has flowed into a chronic form), it may be necessary to administer drugs leading to a relapse of the disease before the study, which allows a successful subsequent drug sensitivity test. In doubtful cases (or if the patient applied after unprotected sexual contact and the disease is not detected by conventional studies), a molecular biological method of research (or PCR) can be used - in this case, the presence of pathogenic DNA in the body is determined. General blood and urine tests will also be required.

All sexual partners of a person diagnosed with gonococcus should also be tested.

Treatment and prevention of gonorrhea

If we talk about the treatment of gonorrhea, then the process is long, difficult and completely excludes self-treatment, since, firstly, it takes precious time, and secondly, with uncontrolled antibiotic intake, the disease is extremely difficult to treat, and the disease will spread all over further to neighboring organs. Successful treatment can only be with the right (individual) choice of drugs, as well as with constant monitoring of the patient's condition through tests.

Throughout the treatment, any sexual contact is prohibited. You will also need to follow a diet (exclude spicy, fatty, salty), alcohol is prohibited, sports are not recommended (you can’t go to the pool), and strict adherence to hygiene standards. Doctors to contact if you suspect a disease are a gynecologist, venereologist or urologist (for men).

Most often, patients are prescribed outpatient treatment, that is, treatment at home with periodic visits to the treating specialist who will monitor your condition and adjust the course of drug therapy. In some cases, a hospital may also be appointed.

The peculiarities of the treatment of gonorrhea in women include the fact that, in addition to tablets containing antibiotics, topical preparations are also prescribed (antibacterial suppositories and microclysters used in the vagina). With an established chronic form, immunocorrectors are also prescribed in addition. Your doctor may also recommend medications that support your liver. It is important to assess the risk of the disease and undergo antibiotic therapy, taking the pills in full, without stopping drug therapy and the course of treatment itself until it is completed (which is determined only by the doctor). Treatment can be considered successful only when gonococci do not appear in the analyzes within three months after the course (that is, for another three months, careful monitoring will have to be carried out to avoid relapse).

The treatment of gonorrhea in men follows a similar pattern - the main role is played by a correctly selected antibiotic in combination with other drugs prescribed depending on the characteristics of the course of the disease. Infrequently, but in cases where the gonorrhea infection is fresh, it may take only one gonorrhea shot to cure - an injection of an antibiotic that will destroy the pathogen and cope with the consequences of its presence in the body. That is why the speed of contacting a doctor matters: if the disease has become chronic (and even more so if there has been self-medication that exacerbates the problem), it will not be possible to limit yourself to one injection.

It is important to remember that successfully cured gonorrhea is no guarantee that you will not get infected in the future, and therefore, even for those who have had a positive experience of being cured (not to mention those who would not want to face similar disease), you should always remember about the prevention of a new infection. The basis of prevention can be considered the absence of unprotected sexual intercourse, as well as the presence of personal hygiene items that no one should be allowed to use. After risky sexual intercourse, the likelihood of getting sick can be reduced by immediately visiting the toilet with urination, and then flushing the genitals using antibacterial agents (in men, this reduces the risk of getting sick by half). Also, do not delay the trip to the doctor, since you can find out if you are sick only after the examination. Moreover, barrier means (condoms) do not give one hundred percent guarantee for the transmission of STDs. Pregnant women are subject to an indispensable examination for gonorrhea. Newborns, for the prevention of severe eye damage, which is provoked by gonococci, are dripped with sodium sulfacyl.

Courtesy of simptom.org