Gonorrhea, commonly called “the clap,” is cured with a single antibiotic injection. You cannot treat it at home with natural remedies, supplements, or over-the-counter medications. The bacteria that cause gonorrhea require prescription antibiotics, and the sooner you get treated, the lower your risk of complications or spreading it to someone else.
The Standard Treatment
The current recommended treatment in the United States is a single injection of ceftriaxone, a strong antibiotic given as a shot in a muscle (usually the hip or upper arm). For most people, that one shot is all it takes. If your provider hasn’t ruled out chlamydia, which commonly occurs alongside gonorrhea, you’ll also be prescribed a week-long course of oral antibiotics to cover that infection too.
Treatment is available at your primary care doctor’s office, urgent care clinics, sexual health clinics, and many public health departments. Some clinics offer walk-in STI testing and can treat you the same day your results come back positive. The injection itself takes seconds, and the appointment is typically quick.
Why Home Remedies Don’t Work
You may have seen claims online about garlic, apple cider vinegar, colloidal silver, or other natural remedies curing gonorrhea. None of these have any proven effect on the bacteria. Gonorrhea is caused by a specific bacterium that has evolved to resist many drugs, and it requires targeted antibiotics to eliminate. Delaying real treatment while trying unproven remedies gives the infection time to spread deeper into your body and to your sexual partners.
How to Know You Have It
Many people with gonorrhea have no symptoms at all, which is one reason it spreads so easily. When symptoms do appear, they differ depending on anatomy and the site of infection.
In men, the most common signs are a burning sensation while urinating and a white, yellow, or green discharge from the penis. Swollen or painful testicles are possible but less common. In women, symptoms can include painful urination, unusual vaginal discharge, and bleeding between periods. These symptoms overlap with other conditions, so testing is the only reliable way to confirm it.
Rectal infections, which can happen in anyone who has receptive anal sex, may cause discharge, itching, soreness, bleeding, or painful bowel movements. Throat infections from oral sex usually cause no noticeable symptoms.
Getting Tested
If you think you’ve been exposed, the timing of your test matters. Gonorrhea testing (usually a urine sample or a swab of the vagina, throat, or rectum) can detect the infection about one week after exposure in most cases. Waiting two weeks catches nearly all infections. Testing too early can produce a false negative, so if your first test is negative but you have symptoms or a known exposure, a follow-up test is a good idea.
What to Do After Treatment
After your injection, you need to avoid sex (or use barrier protection) for at least seven days. Your symptoms, if you had any, should clear up within that window. But feeling better doesn’t mean you should skip the follow-up.
A “test of cure” is recommended for everyone treated for gonorrhea to confirm the infection is actually gone. If your follow-up is within three weeks of treatment, your provider will likely use a culture-based test. If it’s three to four weeks after treatment, a standard nucleic acid test works well. Testing too soon after treatment (less than three weeks) can give a false positive because fragments of dead bacteria linger in your system even after the infection is cleared.
Your Partners Need Treatment Too
Getting treated yourself only solves half the problem. Anyone you’ve had sex with recently needs to be tested and treated, or you risk getting reinfected the next time you’re together. This conversation is uncomfortable, but it’s essential.
If your partner can’t or won’t see a provider, many states allow something called expedited partner therapy. Your doctor can write a prescription that you physically hand to your partner, so they can get antibiotics without a separate office visit. The legality of this varies by state, so ask your provider whether it’s an option where you live.
What Happens If You Don’t Treat It
Untreated gonorrhea doesn’t go away on its own. In women, the infection can travel upward into the uterus and fallopian tubes, causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID can permanently damage reproductive organs and lead to infertility, chronic pelvic pain, or dangerous ectopic pregnancies. Even infections that cause no symptoms can silently scar the reproductive tract over time.
In men, untreated gonorrhea can cause a painful condition called epididymitis, an inflammation of the tube that carries sperm. In rare cases, this can also affect fertility. For anyone, the bacteria can occasionally spread through the bloodstream to joints and other organs, causing a systemic infection that requires hospitalization.
Antibiotic Resistance Is a Growing Concern
Gonorrhea has developed resistance to nearly every antibiotic ever used against it, which is why the treatment recommendations have changed multiple times over the decades. The current first-line drug, ceftriaxone, still works in most of the world, but resistance is emerging. A 2023 surveillance study across nine countries found that 3.8% of gonorrhea samples were resistant to ceftriaxone, with rates as high as 15 to 20% in Cambodia and Vietnam. Resistance to older antibiotics like ciprofloxacin was near-universal at 95%.
This is why the test of cure matters. If your symptoms don’t resolve after treatment, or if your follow-up test is still positive, your provider will try an alternative regimen and may send a sample to a lab to determine exactly which drugs will work against your strain. It’s also why you should never take leftover antibiotics or share someone else’s prescription. Using the wrong antibiotic, or the right one at the wrong dose, fuels resistance.