What is gonorrhea?

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). It is a bacterial infection of the urethra in men and the urethra, cervix, or both in women. Gonorrhea can also infect the rectum, anus, throat, pelvic organs, and, in rare cases, the conjunctiva, which is the membrane that lines the eyelid and eye surface.

Gonorrhea can cause serious health problems.

• For a woman, untreated gonorrhea can move into the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. This can cause painful scar tissue and inflammation, known as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). And PID can cause infertility or ectopic pregnancy.
• For a man, untreated gonorrhea may increase the risk of bladder cancer.¹

You may hear some people refer to gonorrhea as the clap, drip, or GC.

What causes gonorrhea?

Gonorrhea is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It can be spread during vaginal, anal, or oral sex with an infected partner. You have a high risk of getting infected when your partner has gonorrhea and you have sex without a condom.²

With or without symptoms, an infected sex partner can give you gonorrhea until he or she has been treated.

A pregnant woman may pass the infection to her newborn during delivery.

Having a gonorrhea infection once does not protect you from getting another infection in the future. A new exposure to gonorrhea will cause a new infection, even if you were previously treated and cured. This is why it is so important for your partner to be treated when you are.

What are the symptoms?

It is fairly common for gonorrhea to cause no symptoms, especially in women. People who do not have symptoms can unknowingly transmit gonorrhea infections to their sex partners.

The throat, anus, urethra, and rectum are common areas of infection in both men and women. If symptoms are present, they may include painful urination, anal itching or bleeding, or abnormal discharge from the penis or vagina. Gonorrhea infection in the throat doesn't usually cause symptoms, such as a sore throat.

In men, symptoms are usually obvious enough that they will cause a man to seek medical attention before complications occur.

In women, the early symptoms are sometimes so mild that they are mistaken for a bladder infection or vaginal infection. When an untreated infection has moved into the pelvic organs, symptoms can include lower pelvic or belly pain, vaginal bleeding, fever, and pain during sex.

The incubation period-the time from exposure to gonorrhea until symptoms develop-is usually 2 to 5 days, but sometimes symptoms may not develop for up to 30 days.

How is gonorrhea diagnosed?

Your health professional will ask you questions about your medical history and will do a physical exam. He or she will ask you questions about your risk factors for STDs. Risk factors for gonorrhea include:

• Having multiple sex partners (more than one sex partner in the past year).
• Having a high-risk partner (who has multiple sex partners, unprotected sex, or gonorrhea-infected sex partner).
• Having unprotected sexual contact (not using condoms).