far_field
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Two new oral options did get approved in the United States in late 2025, one of them a genuinely new class developed specifically for gonorrhoea. That part is real.
Approval and availability are different things though. Distribution was expected to follow later, and what your clinic can actually prescribe depends on your country and on local guidance, which usually moves slower than a press release.
It was approved in the United States in mid 2025 and the trial results were striking, essentially no infections in one of the two studies.
Whether you can get it is a separate question from whether it exists. Approval, licensing in your country, and whether anyone will pay for it are three different hurdles, and the list price in the US was very high at launch.
Trichomoniasis can persist for a long time without symptoms, particularly in men, where it is often completely silent and frequently clears on its own but not always.
So an infection surfacing now can easily predate the relationship. There is no test that dates it.
Both are possible and they cannot be distinguished by any test you can get. Reactivation of virus that was suppressed rather than eliminated is documented, particularly as people get older.
So a new positive is not proof of a new exposure, and it should not be treated as evidence about a relationship.
It does mean no symptoms. The early and late distinction is about how long you have had it, and it changes two things.
First, treatment duration: late latent infection is treated with a longer course. Second, infectiousness: early infection is transmissible sexually, late latent generally is not.
Not long. Away from a human host they survive somewhere in the region of a day or two at most, because they need to feed.
So the sofa is not a reservoir waiting for you. Washing recent bedding, towels and clothing is sufficient.
The practical takeaway is not stop kissing. It is that throat infection is common, silent, and worth testing for if you have oral sex, which most guidance already says.
Ordinary handwashing during an outbreak covers it. You do not need to change how you live.
That treatment is slow by design. It works by prompting your own immune response rather than destroying tissue, so it typically takes weeks to months, and courses of up to around four months are within normal use.
Smaller at six weeks is progress, not failure.
Do not talk yourself out of going because you were only just treated. Being seen twice is not an imposition, and the cost of catching it late is the part everyone here worries about.
Worth keeping the size of it in perspective. It raises risk relative to not having it; it does not make transmission likely on its own.
Ask what to tell him about allergies before you hand anything over. That is the one part of this that genuinely matters and it is easy to forget in the moment.
Go and say plainly why you are there. It is a routine reason and nobody will react to it.
It depends on why the operation was done and whether the cervix was removed. If the cervix was removed for reasons unrelated to abnormal cells, screening usually stops.
If there was a history of high grade abnormality, follow up often continues on the vaginal vault for a period afterwards.
It is a relatively recent addition to routine HIV care in several places. A large trial showed that treating high grade anal precancerous lesions substantially reduced progression to cancer, and it was stopped early because the result was clear.
That changed guidelines, and screening programmes for people with HIV followed.
The other STI screening turned out to be the most useful part for me. Two things were found on routine checks that I had no symptoms of and would not have gone in for.
There is real research and there has been for decades, including therapeutic vaccines aimed at reducing outbreaks and shedding rather than preventing infection, and gene editing approaches aimed at latent virus.
Nothing has reached routine clinical use. The honest summary is that the science is genuinely active and no timeline anyone gives you is reliable.
Most men have no symptoms at all, which is why it is so often carried and passed on unknowingly.
When there are symptoms they are usually mild: irritation inside the penis, discomfort passing urine or after ejaculation, occasionally a thin discharge.
That actually helps you rather than hurting you. A documented negative narrows the acquisition window to the period between the two tests, which makes staging easier and usually means early infection.
Early infection is treated with a shorter course than late or unknown duration.
A negative in a partner is not unusual. Transmission is not guaranteed per act, and it is also possible he was tested at the wrong moment or that a swab missed an infection that was present.
In most places he would still be offered treatment as a contact, regardless of his negative result.
It varies a lot. The common core almost everywhere is chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV and syphilis. Beyond that it depends on local prevalence and on what the service is funded to do.
Some places add hepatitis B and C routinely, some only for particular groups. Trichomoniasis is routine in some services and only on symptoms in others.
Do not automatically re treat. Itching commonly persists for one to two weeks after successful treatment because it is an allergic reaction to bites, and the bites do not stop itching the moment the insect is gone.
Re treating in the absence of live lice mostly irritates the skin further.
Check entry rules for the specific country well in advance. A small number of countries still have restrictions relating to HIV status, and the reliable sources are national ones rather than forum memory.
Go back and ask them to say it again slowly. Nodding through an unfamiliar word is universal and clinics would far rather explain twice than have you leave uncertain.
Do not decide this yourself and do not just turn up for the third one as if nothing happened. Getting it wrong means an inadequately treated infection that looks treated on paper.