Home Treatment

There is no home treatment for gonorrhea. It requires medicine prescribed by a doctor.

Prescription antibiotic medicine normally cures gonorrhea infections. Gonorrhea does not cause long-term problems if it is treated before any complications develop. But gonorrhea can lead to many complications if it is not treated.

If you have been diagnosed with gonorrhea:

• Take the full course of antibiotics as prescribed by your doctor. If you skip doses or do not complete the treatment, the infection may not be cured.
• Do not have sexual contact with anyone while you are being treated. If your treatment is a single dose of antibiotics, wait at least 7 days after taking the dose before having any sexual contact.
• Make sure your partner knows that he or she needs to be treated even if there are no symptoms. You can spread the infection to others even if you do not have symptoms.
• Call your doctor if your symptoms continue or reappear after treatment or if new symptoms develop. You may need a different antibiotic medicine or further tests.

Finding out that you have gonorrhea may cause you to have negative thoughts or feelings about yourself or about sex. Talking to a counselor or joining a support group for people who have sexually transmitted infections (STIs) may be helpful.

Medications

Antibiotics, if taken exactly as directed, normally cure gonorrhea infections. If antibiotics are not taken properly, the infection will not be cured. Prompt antibiotic treatment also prevents the spread of the infection and decreases complications, such as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).

Avoid all sexual contact while you are being treated for a sexually transmitted infection (STI). People taking a single dose of medicine should not have any sexual contact for 7 days after treatment to give the medicine time to work. Exposed sex partners need treatment whether they have symptoms or not.

What to think about

Some strains of gonorrhea can't be killed by (are resistant to) certain antibiotics. If your doctor finds that your gonorrhea is resistant to the drug you are taking, he or she might prescribe another antibiotic to cure the infection. If you continue to have symptoms after you have been treated for gonorrhea, you will need to be retested with a gonorrhea culture to find out whether there is bacterial resistance to the antibiotic you were taking.

Call your doctor if symptoms continue or new symptoms develop 3 to 4 weeks after treatment.

Treatment in a hospital with intravenous (IV) medicines may be needed for women who have pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and men who have epididymitis. In many cases, these conditions can be treated outside of the hospital with oral antibiotics and close follow-up by your doctor. For more information, see the topic Pelvic Inflammatory Disease.