Can Gonorrhea Go Away On Its Own?

No, gonorrhea cannot go away on its own. Adequate treatment is needed to cure an infected person suffering from the disease. This question usually pops in one’s head as sometimes the disease shows absence of any visible symptoms initially in many cases or in a few patients symptoms may appear and disappear at times, but this does not mean that the disease has been rectified. To be utmost sure that the disease has been cured a person has to undergo various tests and procedures. Ignoring these tests and believing in false beliefs that as the symptoms have disappeared, so the disease is gone will definitely lead to dire consequences in later stage of the disease. So now a new question arises if gonorrhea can’t go away on its own. What are the management methods to tackle this disease? But before moving on to modes of intervention, a person should be quite clear about the disease specifics.

Gonorrhea is a type of sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a bacterial agent, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which is a gram negative bacteria and spherical in shape. The disease is also referred to as ‘The Clap’ disease. It can affect both males and females of the reproductive age who are sexually active. The disease spreads to an uninfected person when one engages in sexual contact with a diseased individual. The symptoms that are seen are mainly in the genital region. Although, they are restricted to that region only the causative agent may even disperse to other places and cause symptoms pertaining to that location like the pharynx, eyes, skin and sometimes even the joints of the body may be affected.

What are the Diagnostic Methods To Identify Gonorrhea?

There are various diagnostic procedures at the clinician’s disposal, which the physician uses in successful diagnosis of gonorrhea. These methods are:-

Culture and Sensitivity – This is done by taking a swab of the infected material (fluid). This may be discharge fluid from the vagina/penis, discharge from the urethra, urine sample, throat swab if pharyngitis is suspected, and swab of the discharge from the eyes when ocular manifestations are present.

Rarely when joints are affected, blood sample is collected from near the region of the affected joint.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) – This is a comparatively new method to Culture testing, but it is an advanced and efficient procedure to determine whether the pathological agent is Neisseria or something different. In this, from the sample collected DNA is extracted and is amplified. This method is advocated as the best one to identifying the species. The only negative point of PCR is that it is an expensive procedure.

Staining by Gram’ Stain – Gram Staining when conducted in infected people will show the presence of gram negative cocci upon microscopy. This is suggestive of Gonorrhea.

The aforementioned tests are quite good but they also do not have one hundred percent accuracy as false negatives and false positives can be there if errors occur while following the approach in disorganized manner.

What are the Modes of Intervention for Gonorrhea?

WHO implicates syndromic management is the way to treat any kind of STD, in which the treatment is also provided to the sexual partners of the ill person. Treatment primarily involves Antibiotic therapy. Strong antibiotic therapy is enough to get rid of gonorrhea, but failure in taking medicine or failure in follow-up will cause infertility and sometimes may even be fatal. In the treatment of gonorrhea, drugs for chlamydial infection are also given as typically a dual infection is more common.

Antibiotic therapy – Third Generation Cephalosporin’s are the drug of choice. Ceftriaxone is the most commonly used. Along with this Azithromycin is given for chlamydia under supervision. This therapy normally lasts for 7-14 days depending upon the severity of symptoms.

Conclusion

It is impossible for gonorrhea to go away on its own. Sometimes there may be absence of symptoms this does not certify that the disease is cured. Certain tests are conducted for diagnosis of the disease, which involves PCR, Staining and Culture. Antibiotics are enough to remedy the cases of gonorrhea and the antibiotic treatment also inculcates treatment of chlamydia, which generally occurs along with gonorrhea. If there is failure of therapy may cause severe complications even death.

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Can Gonorrhea Go Away On Its Own?