This ailment existed in ancient times, because the fact that gonorrhea is a source of impurity is stated in the Bible. This is one of the most dangerous sexually transmitted infections (STDs). Many people know this disease under the name "gonorrhea", and although it is considered the common name of the disease, in Germany this name is official.
What it is?
Since this disease was mentioned even in ancient texts, many are aware of its symptoms, and treatment, and drugs. Gonorrhea in women is not more common than in men, although the risk of infection is different. Most often, infection occurs between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five years. The disease affects the health of the infected person extremely negatively, it can affect both individual organs and entire systems. Recently, cases have also become more frequent when gonorrhea is asymptomatic or with mild signs. In this case, people rarely go to the doctor or prescribe treatment for themselves, which can lead to the infection remaining in the body.
The consequences will be sad. Since gonorrhea can also affect other organs, the airways, cardiovascular and nervous systems will become infected over time. Joint damage is possible, and in extreme cases, blood poisoning (sepsis). And it can lead to death!
Gonorrhea is a fairly common disease that causes severe complications. Its result quite often is both female and male infertility. Infected not only adults, but also children. If a mother suffers from a disease, she will most likely pass it on to her baby during childbirth. Although in both men and women antibiotic treatment of gonorrhea almost always gives a positive effect, during pregnancy it can give complications.
How is gonorrhea transmitted?
It is known that the fair sex is more reverent not only to their health, but also to the choice of sexual partners, therefore, knowledge about how the disease is transmitted and what its symptoms can protect against infection.
In almost all cases, the disease is transmitted during sexual intercourse, and it does not matter if the sex was traditional or not. With oral sex, the likelihood of infection is no less.
Although the percentage of patients with gonorrhea among women and men is approximately the same, the likelihood of infection in women is higher. After a single sexual contact with a woman infected with gonorrhea, the disease will be transmitted to a man in 30-40% of cases. A woman with a single sexual intercourse with a man with a patient with gonorrhea will become infected in 85% of cases! This is due to the anatomical structure of the genitourinary system, as well as to the hormonal specificity of the female body.
Asymptomatic disease occurs during the incubation period. This is most often a fairly short time, from three to fifteen days, but sometimes the infection may not manifest itself within a month. Doctors share two types of gonorrhea: fresh (no more than two months after infection), and if the patient is infected for more than two months, chronic gonorrhea. Treatment and symptoms are the same, however, in many patients, gonorrhea can be almost asymptomatic, this is observed in 50% of cases.
A woman who has noticed even mild symptoms of gonorrhea from her partner is better to refuse sexual contact and consult a doctor.
Myths about gonorrhea
Some people believe that a “gonorrhea” can easily be infected in a bathhouse or pool, through bedding or a towel that an infected person used. Statistics give only one percent out of a hundred to such cases, the rest are sexually transmitted. The thing is that the causative agent of the infection is gonococcus, and these bacteria are extremely non-viable in open air. They die literally in a few minutes.
There is also a rumor that the gonorrhea is not contagious during oral sex. This is not true. The infection is easily transmitted both through the mouth and through the rectum, affecting, respectively, the throat, mouth and anus. The course of the disease and its consequences will be as severe as when infected through the genitourinary system.
If the first myth is quite harmless, then the second can cause significant harm to health. This is especially true for adolescents whom an infected person can, through this myth, convince of the safety of such contact.
Symptoms
Without a diagnosis, treatment is impossible. The first symptoms of gonorrhea in women, what are they?
Although there have been no “bursts” of morbidity in recent years, doctors note sad statistics: more and more often a chronic form of gonorrhea is detected in women. Symptoms and treatment in this case are the same as in acute, so how does this form differ? The fact is that manifestations can either be absent altogether or expressed so insignificantly that the woman herself does not attach any importance to them. In this case, the person becomes a peddler, all of his partners will be infected. In men, such forms of the disease are observed in twenty percent of cases, but in women - in fifty, therefore, it is the representatives of the fair half that it is necessary to conduct a routine examination at the gynecologist once every few months.
The first signs appear, as a rule, after an incubation period, which can last from several days to two weeks. The disease can be chronic or acute.
Signs of acute gonorrhea are: burning sensation, pain in the genitals, purulent and mucous discharge, urination is frequent and painful. These are the very first signs of gonorrhea in women. In this case, treatment can be prescribed even before the results of the tests are obtained, but most often, after all, you will have to wait.
Mild fever may sometimes occur. Also, a woman can "calculate" gonococci by swelling of the gonads, their inflammation, pain in the labia. The lymph nodes are affected, they increase in size, and soreness appears. The skin can become inflamed, the appearance of eczema is often observed. If the patient discovers similar symptoms, consult a doctor immediately. Self-medication can result in bad consequences!
Although most often with gonorrhea, the mucous membrane of the genital tract is affected, doctors can also note infection of the mucosa of the rectum, oropharynx, and conjunctiva.
Gonorrhea stomatitis is accompanied by profuse salivation, sore throat, and sores in the mouth.
Gonorrheal proctitis - discharge from the rectum and itching in the anus.
If untreated, gonorrhea can flow into a chronic form. After a certain time, the disease can lead to irreversible changes in the genitals, as a result of which the patient expects infertility. Gonococcus can disrupt the functioning of vital organs, such as the heart, kidneys, liver, brain. The disease affects the bones, nervous system, skin.
Pelvioperitonitis and rupture of the fallopian tubes are frequent results of both acute and chronic gonorrhea in women.
Treatment
Symptoms identified, what to do next? Not only is the disease quite common, but it is also “by ear”. To some people, far from medicine, it seems scary and even shameful, somewhere before syphilis and AIDS. However, all this is just speculation! The disease is quite common, so at the appointment the doctor will not look at the patient with reproach. Moreover, according to professional ethics, a specialist will not ask provocative questions if you come with a partner.
Of course, treatment of gonorrhea in women will not be enough with one tablet , but the disease can be completely overcome in just a few days, if you consult a doctor in time.
Why is this so important? The fact is that the causative agent of the disease is gonococcus. These are the bacteria that cause the infection, so the only option is to kill the infection, and only antibiotics can do this. It should be remembered that gonorrhea is not removed by any other drugs. At the same time, treatment of gonorrhea in women at home is no different from therapy in a hospital. In the usual course of the disease, the doctor will simply prescribe all the necessary medicines and let the patient go home.
The treatment regimen for gonorrhea in women is quite simple: before starting the course, the doctor must check the body's response to antibiotics (the presence of allergies), and also through tests to determine if there are concomitant sexually transmitted diseases. Often such "fellow travelers" are trichomonas, chlamydial and mycoplasma infections. Then draw up an individual plan for taking the medicine.
Each antibiotic has its own characteristics in the form of side effects, contraindications and a number of bacteria that it has the best effect on, so it is better to leave the selection of the drug to specialists. Only in this case, the success of the treatment of gonorrhea in a woman is guaranteed. Feedback from friends, neighbors or just comments on the Internet should not be taken into account, because an antibiotic that coped with the disease in one woman perfectly can be completely inappropriate for the second! In addition, bacteria are living organisms that constantly evolve and develop resistance to drugs, so until recently penicillins coped well with this disease, but now they don’t. Based on even reviews, the patient can choose a medicine that will only aggravate her condition.
Drug selection
Ciprofloxacin, Ceftriaxone and Ofloxacin - these antibiotics in 2018, doctors use to treat gonorrhea in women.
Penicillins and tetracyclines in the treatment of modern strains of gonorrhea are practically useless. At the moment, several antibiotics are used, while they are divided into "main" and "reserve". The latter are used if the main group was ineffective or there are contraindications. Along with the main course, doctors use macrolides as a prevention of chlamydia.
In rare cases, doctors prescribe injections, but most often antibiotics in tablets. Treatment of gonorrhea in women takes up to two weeks, depending on the "neglect" of the disease.
About self-medication
In the fair sex, the disease often either does not appear at all, or turns into an asymptomatic form later. Gonococci have several mechanisms by which resistance to antibiotic drugs is formed, and the generally accepted treatment regimen may lose relevance at almost any moment. Therefore, it is in women that treatment with antibiotics prescribed spontaneously can be dangerous.
This is especially often due to neglect of the rules for taking drugs. For example, the patient independently chose the medicine, did not follow the recommendations of the intake, finished the course early, as the symptoms had passed, or the dosage was incorrectly calculated, as a result, the gonococci in her body developed immunity. A new strain of the disease was formed that is resistant to the antibiotic that the patient used in her treatment. As a result, all of her subsequent sexual partners can be infected with this new strain, and stronger antibiotics will have to be used.
Effects
As mentioned above, no irreversible changes will occur, however, the consequences after treatment of gonorrhea should be remembered. A woman, due to taking antibiotics, can develop dysbiosis, since the drug, along with gonococci, destroys the intestinal microflora. Often there are pains in the stomach, bloating, itching, various disorders of the stool (diarrhea, constipation). With frequent courses of antibiotic therapy, these symptoms will be more and more expressed once in a while. During treatment, you need to maintain your intestines using special medications. For example, doctors often prescribe probiotics: Bifidumbacterin, Narine, Linex, Bifiform.
A woman may also expect vaginal dysbiosis during treatment. Its symptoms: itching in the vagina, frequent urination, a change in the consistency, smell and color of secretions, pain in the lower abdomen, burning in the urethra.
If these symptoms appear or to prevent them, the doctor may prescribe vaginal probiotics (suppositories or tablets).
ethnoscience
The treatment of gonorrhea in women in the old days was carried out using traditional medicine. The disease is described in the manuscripts of ancient doctors, and even in those immemorial times, cases of supposedly complete cure are known. If for some reason the patient does not want to turn to modern and proven methods of treatment, she can resort to the help of traditional medicine, but it should be remembered that sexual contact should be excluded not only during the course of treatment, but also for several weeks after it. Even if the patient is sure that the disease is gone, the best option would be to visit a gynecologist and take tests to make sure that gonorrhea has not turned into a chronic asymptomatic form.
It is believed that lavender contributes to the treatment of gonorrhea in women. To do this, you need to brew a tablespoon of lavender in a glass of water, add honey and drink this infusion twice a day, one glass each. Women will benefit from douching with lavender oil: five drops of oil are added per liter of water.
In fact, traditional medicine is trying to repeat the same thing that antibiotic drugs do - to overcome the infection. Garlic is a powerful tool in the fight against infection, and therefore it is believed that it will help in the treatment of gonorrhea in both women and men. Eat at least ten cloves of garlic per day, and drink it with sour milk. Masters of traditional medicine are sure that such a simple product will help to defeat even chronic gonorrhea, however, it will have to be consumed for several months, and, of course, all this time to refrain from sexual intercourse.
Women can use garlic swabs in their treatment, but care must be taken not to get a vaginal burn and mucous membrane irritation. It is necessary to use a whole, uncut clove to exclude the release of garlic juice. A clove of garlic needs to be peeled off, smeared with vegetable oil, wrapped with gauze or bandage and inserted into the vagina. Such tampons are usually done at night, apply the product every other day for at least two weeks. Similar tampons can be made from onions.
How to avoid infection?
As a rule, a regular sexual partner and the use of a condom significantly reduces the risk of contracting gonorrhea. Of particular importance are cases of transmission of the disease from mother to child. This occurs during childbirth, as during gestation, the fetus is reliably protected from placental gonococcus. The child, passing through the birth canal, gets a massive infection: there is an infection of the eyes, the genitourinary system and even the respiratory system. This can result in serious consequences for the baby, including gonococcal sepsis and death.
Household infection (in the pool, bath, through household items) is extremely rare, but children, due to the characteristics of the child's body, can get a gonococcal infection if they use bath accessories immediately after infected adults. Most often, girls get the infection. For adults, this mode of transmission is extremely rare. Gonococci quickly die when dried, in water, when exposed to various detergents (even ordinary soaps), antiseptics. They also do not tolerate high temperatures.