How effective is antibiotic treatment for gonorrhoea?

Gonorrhoea can affect the genitals, throat, rectum, or eyes. Some infections cause few symptoms, and symptoms may improve before the infection is fully cleared. Resistance can make drug selection more specific, so use the treatment given by a clinician rather than leftover antibiotics.

A positive result after treatment may reflect reinfection, an infection at another site, or treatment failure. A clinician may recommend a test of cure, particularly when the throat is involved or symptoms remain.

Take or receive treatment exactly as prescribed and avoid sex until the treating clinician confirms the waiting period has passed and partners have been treated. Tell recent partners so they can arrange testing and care.

Return for any advised follow-up test. Use condoms afterwards if appropriate for you, and arrange testing for other sexually transmitted infections when recommended. Do not self-treat a new episode with old medicine.

Contact a clinician if discharge, painful urination, pelvic discomfort, rectal pain, sore throat, or testicular pain persists or returns. Seek urgent help for severe pelvic pain, fever, eye pain or vision change, or sudden severe testicular pain.

Ask which body sites need testing, whether a test of cure is needed, when sex can resume, how partners should be managed, and which symptoms require urgent review.