Treatment of Gonorrheal Complications.
The closing stage of acute Gonorrhea is the only time when a patient can be allowed to take a part in the treatment by making injections at home after careful and personal instruction by a physician. All the rest of the course of Gonorrhea and its various complications can be handled by a physician only, as it requires a special equipment and a special technic.
Deep gonorrheal inflammation forbids any instrumental treatment. With the first symptoms pointing to its development, all injections must stop until the acute stage is over. The patient is advised to rest, and is given some soothing internal medicine. After two or three weeks the local treatment may be resumed.
Similarly to it is treated Acute Epididymitis (inflammation of the testicle). With the first signs of its development, all injections must stop, and the patient has to stay in bed until all acute swelling and pains are gone, which takes usually from two to three weeks. Locally, cold in the form of ice bags, or heat with the hot-water bottle, are used. They are both good, but in either case the applications have to be kept up persistently. Their selection depends upon individual preference and feeling of relief experienced by the patient. Locally, different ointments are used to reduce and soften the swelling.
Deep Gonorrhea can be cured only by deep injections, with a special instrument called instillator, of a few drops at a time of strong germicide drugs.
Extremely useful also and commonly used are irrigations with a fountain syringe of large quantities of antiseptic and soothing solutions, which fill up the bladder and effect a thorough flushing of the whole urethral canal. These irrigations are used under most variable conditions, and are often used preceding or concluding instrumental treatment. Their efficacy depends on the systematic and persistent use and a careful and exact grading of the strength of the solutions.
Granulating patches or row spots mentioned above as the source and origin of strictures can be treated only by the urethroscope described before, by localizing them and touching them up with cauterizing medicines. This treatment is supplemented by stretching with the steel sounds and irrigations. The treatment of strictures is very similar to this, and mainly consists of stretching with gradually increasing in size sounds and irrigations.
Finally, Prostatitis is treated mainly by massage of the prostrate gland, which is done by a finger inserted per rectum. This massage, made once or twice a week, is one of the most valuable parts of the treatment of chronic Gonorrhea, because in no other way can pus and gonococci be eliminated and carried out from the deep recesses of the gland as thru massage. Prostatic massage is usually followed by instillations or irrigations.