SO TWO DAYS AGO, a young guy and his beautiful babe came to see me at the hospital.

The guy complained of very painful urination and pus discharging from the tip of his penis. His babe had just painful urination.

I had a few differentials in my head but on top of the list was gonorrheal infection. So after a detailed history, exam and tests, my suspicion was a lot stronger. Unfortunately, because of the limitations of the facility, I couldn’t take a urethral swab for microscopy, culture and sensitivity, which would have clinched it.

So after mapping out how to treat them, I proceeded to counselling them. I told them of the need to avoid sex for now, or to use condoms if they must. They both would have to be treated as well.t

I told the lady point-blank that if she was used to giving her man a blow job, then she could come down with symptoms of “sore throat” sooner.

The babe said she didn’t have any sore throat.

Toh!

I said no wahala.

Yesterday, the lady came back to complain of very bad “sore throat”.

In my mind I was like: “Oshey! I already saw it coming.”

She then admitted that she had always loved giving her man a blow job. And now her man had gonorrheal infection, it seemed.

Now, while there are a few causes of sore throat, the reason she had this particular “sore throat” was most likely from the gonorrhea which could have got via oral sex.

This is called PHARYNGEAL GONORRHEA.

I had written about this in the past.

Immediately, I reminded the babe of what I said the previous day and then began to counsel her again.

Pharyngeal gonorrhea is a gonorrheal infection of the pharynx (back of the mouth). It is seen in people who give blow job or head to gonorrhea-infected people during sex.

The symptoms look like those of sore throat, but on this case, it is not caused by Streptococcus pyogenes or S. pneumoniae, but by Neisseria gonorrheae.

The treatment plan is same for genital gonorrheae infection, which is done with antibiotics.

Someone later asked me why I decided to treat both the guy and his babe of gonorrhea instead of the guy alone.

I had to explain to her that the aim was to prevent what we call a PING-PONG infection.

This means ‘back and forth’ infection just like ping pong or table tennis.

It is a term commonly used with the sexually transmitted infection, Trichomoniasis, but it can also arise when a sexually-active couple is having an STI and you treat just one of them.

After treatment, he goes back to his untreated spouse, has sex, collects it back from her. She could then get treated, but she goes back to him, has sex, collects it from him again.

Just like that.

So the infection keeps bouncing between the two like a ping pong or table tennis.

🏓🏓🏓🏓

It is a very annoying stuff for a doc.

Remember:
+++Impossibility is nothing. Just believe+++

~ © Caséy Amaefule ’20