Pathophysiology-Reproductive Disorder - Essay Example

"Pathophysiology-Reproductive Disorder" is a perfect example of a paper on the disorder.
Symptoms of gonorrhea in men include discharge of a viscous yellow, green, or white fluid from the penis’s tip, discomfort in the penis, and/or a sensation of burning while urinating. Women experience several kinds of symptoms of gonorrhea which include a sensation of burning during urination, bleeding with periods, discharge of bloody or yellow fluid from the vagina, pain during sex, bleeding during menses.

PID happens as a result of the movement of bacteria from the cervix or vagina up to the reproductive organs of a woman. A vast majority of the cases of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in women are associated with gonorrhea. The number of such cases in the US amounts to 750,000 (cdc.gov, 2011). The symptoms can be mild or severe. Women suffering from PID caused by gonorrhea are caught in fever and experience abdominal pain. “PID can lead to internal abscesses (pus-filled “pockets” that are hard to cure) and long-lasting, chronic pelvic pain. PID can damage the fallopian tubes enough to cause infertility or increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy” (cdc.gov, 2011). PID acquired once can cause successive episodes of the condition since the initial bout of infection damages the reproductive organs.

Sometimes, gonorrhea in women leads them to peritonitis. It is the inflammation of the peritoneum and an extremely serious disorder. If adequate treatment is not taken to stop the infection, it may cause the death of the patient. “Although antibiotics have greatly reduced the mortality rate of acute peritonitis, it is estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 women are made sterile by gonorrhea every year as a result of scar tissue formation that closes the uterine tubes” (aarogya.com, 2012).

Jane has a slight chance of developing infertility. Although gonorrhea and Chlamydia are preventable, yet they are important causes of infertility. Particularly if gonorrhea has caused PID in the patient, the reproductive organs may become damaged, as a result of which the patient may experience infertility. However, the chances of infertility are reduced if adequate treatment is taken in time, though the cost of prevention is fairly high. “In 1988, a study estimated that the cost of preventable infertility in the US was in the vicinity of $64 billion, and it is probably substantially higher today” (Boskey, 2007).

Drug-resistant bacteria, as the name indicates, are the bacteria that cannot be killed or controlled by drugs. Such bacteria include but are not limited to “Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA or golden staph), vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) and multi-drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-TB)” (Better Health, 2012). Most of the drug-resistant bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. They can not only survive while the patient takes the antibiotics, but can also multiply. Most of the infection-causing bacteria tend to become resistant to certain antibiotics. Some bacteria are more resistant as compared to others towards a wide range of antibiotics and are thus called as multi-resistant organisms (MROs). As a result, patients can suffer from serious diseases. This can be avoided by not prescribing the patient antibiotics unless it is inevitable. The right dosage of antibiotics accompanied by good hygiene can solve the problem of drug-resistant bacteria.