Over the years, gonorrhea has become resistant to almost all of the classes of antibiotics once used to treat it. Successful treatment now relies on the one remaining class of antibiotics — cephalosporins — that’s effective against it, per the CDC.
Medication Options
As of December 2020, the CDC recommends a single 500-milligram (mg) intramuscular dose of the antibiotic Rocephin (ceftriaxone) for uncomplicated gonorrhea. Treatment for coinfection with Chlamydia trachomatis with oral doxycycline (100 mg twice daily for seven days) should be administered when chlamydial infection has not been excluded.
Be sure to tell those who you have sex with that you are being treated for gonorrhea so they can be treated, too. This will help you avoid passing it back and forth to each other.
You should not have sex for seven days after treatment, and you should refrain from having sex with partners who have not been treated for gonorrhea until after they have been tested and, if necessary, treated.
Alternative and Complementary Therapies
Gonorrhea is curable with antibiotics, provided the medications are taken as prescribed; there aren’t any alternative therapies that have been proven to cure the disease.
There does appear to be potential for the mouthwash Listerine to help with gonorrhea control. In one small 2017 study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, researchers instructed men with pharyngeal gonorrhea (gonorrhea of the throat) to gargle with Listerine for one minute.A control group of men gargled with a saline solution. Five minutes after gargling, the men received pharyngeal swabs to see what effect, if any, the Listerine had had on the amount of N. gonorrhoeae bacteria in their throats. The researchers found that men who’d gargled with Listerine were significantly less likely to have positive tests than the men who’d gargled with saline. Even so, all the men in the study were then treated with antibiotics to cure their gonorrhea.
While the Listerine study raises intriguing possibilities, it does not prove that Listerine cures gonorrhea. People who test positive for gonorrhea should still be treated with antibiotics. In addition, Listerine is not intended to be used in body cavities other than the mouth.
Prevention of Gonorrhea
The only way to absolutely keep yourself safe from catching gonorrhea is to avoid having vaginal, anal, or oral sex. However, since many people wish to have sex at some point in their lives, that may be unrealistic.
But there are ways you can lower your risk of getting the disease while still being sexually active, such as the following:
- Using a condom during vaginal or anal sex
- Using a condom (for men) or a dental dam (for women) during oral sex
- Thoroughly washing sex toys — or changing the condom on them — before a new person uses them
- Not having sex with anyone until you’ve finished your treatment (if you are currently being treated for gonorrhea)
Also, having sex with fewer partners can help reduce your chances of getting gonorrhea.
Preventing Gonorrhea in Infants
Gonorrhea in a pregnant woman can increase the risk for miscarriage and premature birth, according to the American Pregnancy Association.
Pregnant women with gonorrhea can also pass it to their baby during childbirth, which can cause a severe eye infection possibly leading to blindness, a joint infection, or a deadly blood infection in their infant.
For these reasons, it’s recommended that women get screened for gonorrhea at their first prenatal visit so that they can be treated as soon as possible if they have it.
If gonorrhea is detected in an infant after birth, it’s treatable with Rocephin, notes the CDC.
