Gonorrhea

Why do they want a throat retest but not a urine one?

Treated for gonorrhoea at two sites. They booked me back for a follow up throat swab and said nothing about retesting anywhere else. It seems inconsistent.

third_shift 4 weeks ago

NoteMember experience, not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections and only a test can tell them apart.

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tinbird 4 weeks ago

It is deliberate, not inconsistent. Throat infections are genuinely harder to clear than genital or rectal ones, and fewer regimens reliably eradicate them.

Because of that, the CDC guidance recommends a test of cure specifically for pharyngeal gonorrhoea, roughly one to two weeks after treatment. For urogenital infection a routine test of cure is not recommended in the same way.

greytide 4 weeks ago

The other reason it matters is surveillance. Throat infections are where reduced susceptibility tends to show up first, so the follow up swab is partly about you and partly about catching resistance early.

Go to the appointment. It is a short swab and it is the one that actually confirms it has gone.

spare_key 4 weeks ago

Separately, most services will still want you back at three months, not to check the treatment worked but to check you have not picked it up again. Two different appointments for two different questions.

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