Gonorrhea is treated with a single antibiotic injection, typically given at a clinic or doctor’s office in one visit. Most people see their infection clear up within 7 to 14 days after treatment. The process is straightforward, but there are important details about what happens before, during, and after treatment that affect whether it works.
The Standard Treatment
The first-line treatment for uncomplicated gonorrhea is a single shot of ceftriaxone, a powerful antibiotic in the cephalosporin class. You receive the injection in a healthcare setting, and that one dose is the core of your treatment. There are no pills to take home for the gonorrhea itself, no multi-day course to remember. One visit, one shot.
However, your provider will almost always add a second antibiotic, doxycycline, taken as a pill twice daily for seven days. This covers chlamydia, a separate infection that frequently occurs alongside gonorrhea. Because testing for chlamydia can take time and the two infections so often travel together, most providers treat both at once rather than waiting for results. If your chlamydia test comes back negative, the extra antibiotic still won’t have caused harm.
What Recovery Looks Like
After the injection, symptoms like discharge, burning during urination, or pelvic discomfort typically begin improving within a few days. Full clearance of the infection takes 7 to 14 days. During the first seven days of treatment, you should avoid all sexual contact to prevent passing the infection to anyone else. The general rule is to wait at least a week after both you and your partner have finished all medications before having sex again.
You won’t need a follow-up “test of cure” in most routine cases, but the CDC recommends retesting three months after your diagnosis. This isn’t to check whether the first treatment worked. It’s to catch reinfection, which is common, especially if a partner wasn’t treated or if you’ve had new sexual contact.
Why Your Partners Need Treatment Too
Treating yourself without addressing your sexual partners creates a cycle of reinfection. Anyone you’ve had sex with in the recent period before your diagnosis needs to be tested and treated. This can feel like an awkward conversation, but it’s one of the most important steps in actually resolving the infection.
If your partner can’t or won’t see a doctor, a practice called expedited partner therapy (EPT) may be an option. EPT allows your healthcare provider to write a prescription or provide medication that you physically bring to your partner, without that partner needing their own clinical exam first. The CDC considers EPT a useful tool, particularly for male partners of women diagnosed with gonorrhea. It’s legal in most U.S. states, though the rules vary by location. Your provider can tell you whether it’s available where you live.
Why Gonorrhea Is Harder to Treat Than It Used to Be
Gonorrhea has developed resistance to nearly every class of antibiotic that’s been used against it over the decades. Older treatments like ciprofloxacin, a common oral antibiotic, are now ineffective in roughly 35% of tested samples. Azithromycin, which was previously part of the standard treatment combination, saw resistance climb to nearly 6% of tested samples by 2020. That may sound small, but for a widespread infection, it’s enough to make a drug unreliable as a first choice.
This is why the current guidelines rely on an injectable cephalosporin rather than oral pills alone. The injectable form delivers a high, concentrated dose directly into your system, which is more effective against bacteria that have developed partial resistance. It’s also why taking the full course of any prescribed antibiotics matters. Skipping doses or stopping early gives surviving bacteria a chance to adapt.
If You Have a Drug Allergy
If you’re allergic to cephalosporins or penicillin (the two drug families are chemically related), let your provider know before treatment. Alternative antibiotic combinations exist, though the options are more limited. Your provider will choose a regimen based on the severity of your allergy and may recommend allergy testing if there’s any uncertainty. A history of mild penicillin side effects doesn’t necessarily rule out cephalosporins, so an honest conversation about your past reactions helps your provider make the right call.
What Happens If Gonorrhea Goes Untreated
Gonorrhea doesn’t resolve on its own. Without treatment, the bacteria continue multiplying and can spread to other parts of the body. In women, the infection can travel from the cervix into the uterus and fallopian tubes, causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID can lead to chronic pelvic pain, scarring of the reproductive organs, and infertility. Roughly 10 to 15% of women with untreated sexually transmitted infections in this category develop PID.
In men, untreated gonorrhea can cause epididymitis, a painful inflammation of the tube that carries sperm from the testicle. This can also affect fertility if left unchecked. In rare cases, the bacteria enter the bloodstream and spread to joints, heart valves, or other organs. This disseminated infection is a medical emergency requiring hospitalization and intravenous antibiotics, a far more intensive process than the single-shot treatment for a straightforward case.
Where to Get Treated
You can be tested and treated for gonorrhea at a primary care office, an urgent care clinic, a sexual health clinic, or your local health department. Many city and county health departments offer free or low-cost STI testing and treatment. Planned Parenthood locations provide these services as well. If you’re uninsured, public health clinics are often the most affordable route. The entire visit for an uncomplicated case, from test to injection, can often happen in a single appointment, though you may need to return if your provider sends the test to a lab and wants to confirm results before treating.
If you test positive, getting treated the same day whenever possible gives you the best outcome and reduces the window during which you could pass the infection to someone else.