Diagnosis

Your doctor will ask about your sexual history including new partners and condom use. Your doctor will look for an abnormal discharge from your urethra. In women, a pelvic examination will be done to look for tenderness, redness or abnormal discharge from the cervix and vagina. Since most urethritis is caused by sexually transmitted infections, your doctor will examine you for signs of other infections including syphilis, human papilloma virus (HPV) that causes venereal warts and HIV.

Your doctor will likely take a swab of the urethra in men and of the cervix in women. The specimen will be sent to the laboratory to be tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Your doctor may also order a blood test for syphilis and, with your permission, a blood test for HIV.

Urethritis related to injury or chemical irritation is based solely on your medical history and the absence of an infectious cause.

Expected Duration

Once you start taking antibiotics, bacterial urethritis improves rapidly. Without treatment, the symptoms of gonorrhea and chlamydia urethritis usually go away within three months. However, people continue to remain infectious, and spread the infection to others even when they have no symptoms. Untreated infections can spread from the cervix to the fallopian tubes in women, where they can cause permanent scarring and infertility.

Urethritis from injury or chemical irritation goes away without treatment once the cause is identified and avoided.