Gonorrhea, also known as “the clap” is a fairly common sexually transmitted disease.Anyone can get gonorrhea, but 75% of the cases infected with gonorrhea are in between the age of 15-29 years.
Women between 15-19 years of age are at high risk of becoming infected with gonorrhea. It is the second most commonly reported STD in United States.
Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection caused by Neisseria gonorrheae bacteria. This infection is mainly transmitted through vaginal, anal or oral sex.
Bacteria can be transmitted through vaginal fluid or seminal fluid. Infection can be developed in the genital tract, uterus, fallopian tubes, rectum and also mouth, eyes or throat.
Here are the five different types of gonorrhea:
1. Gonorrhea of the mouth:
Most of you don’t know that you are carrying this infection in the mouth because most of the patients with gonorrhea are asymptomatic or not have any kind of signs and symptoms.
Symptoms of mouth gonorrhea rarely occur even if you have this bacterial infection inside your body. If you observe any signs and symptoms of mouth gonorrhea, you can immediately receive good medical care.
Identifying mouth gonorrhea in early stages can give greater chances of getting cured.
Similar to other gonorrhea types, this type can also has an incubation period of 7-30 days for men, but it is even longer for women.
One major symptom of mouth gonorrhea is inflammation of the throat. Most of the times, this infection is mistakenly considered as throat infection. Antibiotics that are used to control mouth gonorrhea include:
- Doxycycline
- Azithromycin
- Ofloxacin
- Cefixime
A healthy woman has clear and milky discharge that doesn’t smell bad. Color and thickness of this discharge alters with your monthly cycle. The discharge becomes thicker when you ovulate, when you breastfeed or when you excited sexually. During your monthly cycle, the discharge combines with menstrual blood.
If there is something wrong, you will have an increased amount of vaginal discharge, change in smell or color of discharge, itchiness, irritation or burning in or around the vagina.
Gonorrhea of cervix: Also called as cervical gonorrhea. If you are already infected with vaginal gonorrhea, then you are at greater risk for cervical gonorrhea because cervix is the first part immediately after the vagina.
Sometimes, this disease can also affect your uterus and fallopian tubes leading pelvic inflammatory disease. Women with PID can experience tubal pregnancy and infertility in as many as 10% of the infected women.
Gonorrhea of throat: Also called as throat gonorrhea or pharyngeal gonorrhea is transmitted through oral sex. Sometimes, people with throat gonorrhea don’t experience any symptoms. Usually the condition disappears on its own without any treatment.
Sometimes, mouth gonorrhea becomes very painful and cause most serious infections like tonsils. If you experience sore throat continuously one week after having oral sex, then it can be due to gonorrhea bacteria. Usually, throat gonorrhea takes one week to appear the symptoms.
It can be treated with antibiotics. Sometimes, you need an injection to replace oral medication.
Gonorrhea of eyes: Also called as ocular gonorrhea and is a rare type of gonorrhea. It usually occurs because of direct contamination.
Direct hand to eye contact can cause ocular gonorrhea. Ocular gonorrhea can cause conjunctivitis. It leads to brown, crusty, pus-like discharge and pink eye caused by blood vessel inflammation in the eyes.
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