

Answer to Medical Mystery Monday #42 (SFW)


The answer to yesterday’s mystery is … gonorrhea! Great job O’B1, Myra, bunny, Patti Ann, CAD, jrcasmir, ColorMaven, D2, George de Piro, Rich S, Jjowett, Cihan, hellomolly, Meredith, Erin, DG, and M.L. Cullen.

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It is the second most common STI, following chlamydia. The bacteria can infect the mucus membranes of the body, commonly the urethra (like our patient), throat, or rectum. The bacteria is spread from person to person via unprotected sex. The bacteria live inside of the patient’s cells, which can be seen as the tiny pink dots on our patient’s slide. Besides burning and pain on urination, gonorrhea also causes pus formation within the urethra, which can be seen in the picture of our patient’s penis.

In males, gonorrhea almost always causes symptoms, while in females it rarely does. Unfortunately, untreated gonorrhea infections in women can cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and infertility, so the patient’s partner should be informed of his infection as soon as possible. Gonorrhea (and other STI’s) can be prevented by practicing safe sex, which the doctor would encourage this patient to do in the future.

Gonorrhea can be cured with an antibiotic, usually ceftriaxone. The doctor would also want to test the patient for other STI’s such as chlamydia and HIV because of his risk factor of unprotected sex.

Hope you enjoyed reading about gonorrhea. I’ll leave you with the hilarious clip from “Seinfeld” that Cihan mentioned, where Kramer acts as a “patient” for the medical students to practice on:

Marianne DiNapoli

4 Responses

  1. O'B1 says:

    I have to fall on my sword. I said break out the Cipro in my comment about treating gonorrhea. Cipro is no longer recommended (and hasn’t been for a number of years) by the CDC for the treatment of gonorrhea due to ever increasing resistance issues.

  2. Matt says:

    Well if you have to get an STD I guess its best that its one thats treatable with a round of antibiotics.

  3. Chuck Miller says:

    To re-use an old line from Saturday Night Live, if the New York Post finds out you’ve caught this disease, everybody’s Gonorrhead all about it.

  4. an interested reader says:

    Just curious…why are we calling them STIs now instead of STDs? Am I dating myself by using the term STD?? ;)