Do you experience difficulty in swallowing? That could be a symptom for throat or oropharyngeal gonorrhoea.
New findings show throat gonorrhoea can be caught by kissing your partner – and it infects your throat.
Until now experts thought the infection was only spread through unprotected sex and not kissing.
In fact, according to the study done in Australia, snogging could spread drug-resistant gonorrhoea.
But researchers now say the bacteria can also be passed on in saliva.
It means people who engage in deep tongue kissing – or “French kissing” – are at great risk.
Signs you could have throat gonorrhoea include a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes in the neck, though in many cases it causes no symptoms.
Oral gonorrhea rarely causes symptoms and is often hard to detect. This can result in delayed treatment, which increases the risk of transmitting the infection to others.
Trials are underway to see if gargling with an antiseptic mouthwash could keep infections at bay.
Here are some of the signs you need to know:
Sore throat
Leading to discomfort when swallowing food.
Redness in the throat
Fever
Swollen lymph nodes in the neck
But one in ten infected men and almost half of infected women do not experience any symptoms.