Suggest Treatment For Recurring Gonorrhea Infection

Posted on Mon, 25 Jan 2016

Question: My wife was diagnosed with gonorrhea at the end of may and we were both treated with doxycycline and one other med. We abstained from sex for 2 months and then used a condom but I had oral sex. She developed symptoms a day later and was rediagnosed. Since then I have been tested 4 times, all with negative results. The doctor thnks it may be a resistant strain but it seems related to pharyngeal gonorrhea to me if we had only oral sex. Yet rwo throat swabs yielded no evidence of onfection in me. One doctor says that this may be because it is hard to get a good swab, especially if it doesn;t go deep into the throat. What should I do? I thought od insisting that they use a local to get a deeper throat swab because it seems so possible amd there are no other routes left to diagnose accurately what is happening, especially since I have had no outside partners for 20 years. I was very sexually active with men and women before this, however, and took a lot of risks then. I have also had a number of burning urine episodes, which I thought were related to my herpes. But I have had no discharge or any other symptoms of this disease except for occasional sore throats over the years, sometimes with strep-like symptoms ( was never tested however).

Answered by Dr. Sheetal Verma (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
Culture needed on special media.

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Thanks for your query.
I understand your concern and situation.

I would like to tell you that you have to rely on culture on special media for gonorrhea to isolate strain and test for microscopy and culture sensitivity. Yes gonococcus are very fragile and not easily isolated. Deep swab is required to be taken on repeated occasions. It is difficult to tell correct antibiotics without antibiotics susceptibility tests. You may try few more times and get culture done on special media Thayer XXXXXXX media. Currently, there is no well-studied reliable technology that allows for antibiotic susceptibility testing from non-culture specimens.So if the above technique fail then ceftriaxone plus either azithromycin will beneficial for resistant strains. I would also suggest you to get urine analysis and culture sensitivity done in both partners. Abstain from oral sex till disease persists and use condom. Don't worry you will be fine.

Hope I answered your query
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Rating and review will be appreciated
Dr Sheetal Verma

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar