What are the symptoms of non-gonococcal urethritis

The symptoms of non-gonococcal urethritis are different for men and women. Men often show varying degrees of frequent urination, urgency, pain, and difficulty urinating. Some may also have symptoms of balanoposthitis, making patients restless.

1. 30%-40% of patients have no symptoms, and many patients have atypical symptoms. About half of the patients are easily misdiagnosed during the initial visit. Typical symptoms are urethral spasm and itching accompanied by varying degrees of urinary frequency, urgency, pain and difficulty urinating. If you do not urinate for a long time or before urinating for the first time in the morning, a small amount of liquid secretions may escape from the external urethra. In severe cases, there may be purulent secretions. In 10% of cases, symptoms persist or recur. This type of patient is often related to incomplete or inappropriate treatment, abnormal urethral structure, excessive drinking, frequent sexual activity and psychological disorders. In cases of recurrent attacks, each attack is generally milder than the previous one, but the patient's mood becomes heavier each time. Some even become restless, fearing that they have an incurable disease.

2. In some cases with frequent attacks, urethral discomfort persists even between attacks; in other cases, the symptoms are not obvious, but there are more pus cells in the urethral secretion smear. ⑵Physical signs: redness and swelling of the urethral orifice and urethral discharge are common. In recurrent cases of chlamydia infection, there is a circle of swelling around the urethral opening, which is often lip-like, red and swollen, shiny and not easy to subside; in recalcitrant cases of candida infection, the urethral opening may expand in a funnel shape, dark red, with a little scale, and is often accompanied by balanoposthitis; in cases of mycoplasma and Trichomonas infection, the urethral opening is not obviously red and swollen. Urethra discharge is often serous or fluid-purulent. In patients with mycoplasma, Candida albicans and herpes simplex virus infection, the discharge is mostly serous, while in patients with chlamydia or miscellaneous bacteria infection, the discharge is mostly fluid-purulent. People infected with herpes simplex virus may experience swollen and tender inguinal lymph nodes.

3. Mostly asymptomatic. When there is urethritis, about 50% of patients experience urinary urgency, frequent urination and difficulty urinating, but no symptoms of urinary pain or only mild urinary pain. The cervix is ​​the main site of infection in women. The main symptoms are hydropurulent endocervicitis, which may include increased leucorrhea, vulvar and vaginal itching, and lower abdominal discomfort.

4. Check the urethral opening to find redness and swelling, and compress the urethra to produce a small amount of light yellow secretions. Insert a white cotton swab into the cervical opening and rotate it slightly. After it is removed, the swab will turn light yellow visibly. Cervical congestion and edema often occur, and rotating a swab at the junction of squamous and columnar epithelium can cause bleeding. Since Chlamydia and Mycoplasma do not parasitize on stratified squamous epithelium, they generally do not cause vaginitis.