Hesperian Health Guides
Taking Medicines to Treat STIs
HealthWiki > Where Women Have No Doctor > Chapter 16: Sexually Transmitted Infections and Other Infections of the Genitals > Taking Medicines to Treat STIs
Learn about a medicine before you take it by looking it up in the âMedicines Pagesâ.
Warnings are given in this chapter if a medicine should not be taken while pregnant or breastfeeding. If a medicine does not have a warning, it is safe to take.
In this chapter we recommend medicines that treat STIs. Because it is common to have more than one infection at a time, it can be necessary to take more than one medicine. Be sure to take each medicine according to the instructions.
Which medicines are available and how much they cost depends on where you live. Check with a health worker or pharmacist to know if it is best to take the medicines listed here or others instead.
You may also need to take a different medicine if:
- you are pregnant or breastfeeding and the medicine is not safe to take during those times.
- the STI you have is resistant to the medicine.
- you have an allergy to the medicine. For example, some people are allergic to penicillins or sulfa medicines and must take a different type of antibiotic instead
Resistance to STI medicines
When using medicines to treat STIs and other diseases, it is very important to take all the doses of the medicine for the correct number of days. If a person does not take enough of the right kind of medicineâor stops taking the medicine before the treatment is finishedâthe germs causing the infection are not all killed. The strongest germs survive and create stronger forms of the disease. Then a medicine that once worked against that disease is no longer able to cure it. This is when we say an infection has become resistant to a medicine.
For this reason, in many places gonorrhea has become resistant to the medicines usually used to treat it. Talk with a health worker to find out if this is a problem where you live, and what are the best locally available medicines to treat STIs.
When treating STIs, always:
- make sure your sexual partners get treated too.
- take all the medicine for the correct number of days.
- stop having sex or use condoms during sex until your signs have gone away AND you and your sexual partners have finished all the medicine.
- see a health worker if you do not get better by the end of your treatment.
- practice safer sex when you do have sex again.