How can you protect yourself and others from gonorrhea?

Condoms and femidoms (condoms for women) can stop the spread of gonococcus bacteria during sex. But only if you use them properly – during oral sex too, for instance. Special thin sheets known as dental dams can be used for oral sex.

If you want to share sex toys like dildos, it’s a good idea to put a condom on them, using a new one each time someone else uses the toy.

There are no medications that provide effective protection against gonorrhea. Research has not shown that germ-killing gels and vaginal suppositories prevent gonorrhea.

Generally speaking, if you notice a pus-like or watery discharge from your penis, vagina or anus, it’s best to do a gonorrhea test.

The risk of catching STIs like gonorrhea is greater in people who frequently have various different sexual partners and don’t use condoms. Then it makes sense to get tested regularly – roughly every three months. This makes sure that infections don’t go untreated, spread around your body and cause complications. Early diagnosis and treatment also protects your sexual partners. You can find out where to get tested, and what it involves, here: “Gonorrhea tests.”

If you’re diagnosed with gonorrhea, there are two main things you need to do: Stop having sex, so you can’t infect anyone. And start treatment quickly. It usually takes 24 hours for the treatment to get rid of the bacteria. After that, the risk of infecting others is low. But experts do recommend waiting a week before you have sex again. They also recommend that you have a check-up two to four weeks after treatment, just to make sure it was successful.

There’s no need to disinfect household items or surfaces. You can also carry on shaking hands, hugging and cuddling as normal.

Talking about STIs can be unpleasant and stressful. But it’s important to tell anyone you might have infected about your infection. The best thing is to contact everyone you’ve had sex with in the past three months.

Once they know, they can get themselves tested and, if necessary, treated too. Otherwise, you might end up passing the infection back and forth.

Gonococcus bacteria can be passed from the mother’s genitals to the baby during childbirth. Then the bacteria usually infect membranes in the baby’s eyes, causing a serious eye infection with pus-like discharge (gonococcal conjunctivitis) if left untreated. In bad cases, the child may go blind.

It was because of this risk that, up until the 1980s, all newborn babies in Germany were given eye drops containing silver nitrate straight after birth. Although this medication got rid of the bacteria, it also sometimes caused irritation and inflammation in the eyes. Nowadays, there are antibiotic eye drops that have a gentler effect. In some countries, such as the United States, it’s still standard practice to give newborn babies these drops as a preventive measure.

But this practice is no longer recommended in Germany and other European countries. Instead, experts recommend a gonorrhea test at the beginning of pregnancy. It is sometimes carried out at the same time as the test that’s offered for chlamydia. Pregnant women who have an increased risk of getting gonorrhea – due to unprotected sex with different partners, for instance – can have a second test done in the last trimester of their pregnancy. If they’re diagnosed with gonorrhea, it can be treated during the pregnancy to protect the baby during birth.