This damage can leave both men and women unable to have children. Men and women infected with gonorrhea are more susceptible to heart infections, meningitis , and arthritis. Gonorrhea can also be transmitted during childbirth. Gonorrhea is diagnosed by a practitioner taking a sample of discharge from the vagina or urethra and performing a lab culture. Treatment of gonorrhea is with oral antibiotics.
Sexual abstinence is required until the infection is confirmed cured.
A follow-up exam seven days after treatment is essential to ensure that gonorrhea is completely gone. Each stage has different symptoms and the stages are progressively worse. Syphilis is totally curable with antibiotics, but damage done from the disease cannot be reversed. It is essential to catch the disease early so that treatment can take place before it reaches the secondary or tertiary stage. One of the first symptoms of syphilis is a sore, called a chancre, and it can occur on any part of the body that has come in contact with infected bodily fluids.