Sexual Health STDs Treatment Can a Treated STD Come Back? By Elizabeth Boskey, PhD facebook twitter linkedin Elizabeth Boskey, PhD, MPH, CHES, is a social worker, adjunct lecturer, and expert writer in the field of sexually transmitted diseases. Learn about our editorial process Elizabeth Boskey, PhD Medically reviewed by Medically reviewed by Monique Rainford, MD on November 22, 2020 Monique Rainford, MD, is the chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale Health. Learn about our Medical Review Board Monique Rainford, MD Updated on January 18, 2021 Print Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and trichomoniasis can all be treated, and often cured, with antibiotics. While it's important that you find treatment for your STD, having your STD treated is not a guarantee that it will never come back. You have to use your medication as directed, and you also have to be careful about prevention so you won't get re-infected. Verywell / Cindy Chung Taking the Incorrect Medication Keep in mind that your treatment can fail if you're taking the wrong medication. You might be prescribed the wrong drugs due to syndromatic treatment, an efficient, but sometimes inaccurate treatment method in which patients are prescribed STD treatment based on symptoms, rather than testing. This is sometimes done in STD clinics when there is a concern that the patient might not come back for their test results. And you could be taking the wrong medication if you've acquired it on your own and chose the wrong ones—such as taking medication that was prescribed for a past STD you had, or for your partner, or for a friend. Not all STDs are caused by the same pathogens (infectious organisms). Different illnesses require different treatments. That's why it's so important for your healthcare provider to correctly identify what's causing your infection. That's also why you can't just take any random antibiotic and hope it's going to work. Taking Medication Incorrectly If your provider prescribes an antibiotic for you, it's important that you take your whole prescription. That's true even if you feel better before you're done. Failing to finish your antibiotic course as directed might keep your STD from being cured and it might also make it far more difficult to treat your STD next time due to antibiotic resistance. The Role of Antibiotics in Treating Infections Your Partner Didn't Get Treated If you have a consistent sexual partner, it's important to tell them about your infection so they can get treatment, too. Once you've both gotten treated, you have to wait until the treatment has had time to work before you start having sex again (particularly unprotected sex). Without taking these important steps, it is possible for the two of you to end up passing the STD back and forth. Being Exposed to Another STD Being successfully treated for chlamydia, gonorrhea, or another STD does not protect you from other STDs In fact, many people become infected with STDs over and over again because they continue to have unprotected sex with partners who have untreated STDs. If you've been treated for an STD and don't want to get another one, the best thing that you can do is change your behaviors to decrease your risk. That means consistently practicing safe sex and always talking to new partners about STD risk before having sex. STD-Specific Concerns Certain STDs pose additional problems that can make them likely to have an encore. If you've been diagnosed with any of these, it's important to keep the following in mind. Chlamydia A significant number of people who have been diagnosed with and treated for chlamydia will get the infection again after treatment. This can be due to repeated exposure. Research using animal models suggests that chlamydia may be able to hide out in the gut and re-emerge, which could be another reason why chlamydia can come back after treatment. Gonorrhea Gonorrhea is treatable with antibiotics, but antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is starting to become a public health crisis. You may need to have your infection tested for susceptibility to treatment or come back after treatment to see if it worked. Over time, it has become more difficult to find affordable antibiotics that can consistently and effectively treat gonorrhea. That means people seeking treatment may need to be treated with more expensive antibiotics. Syphilis As with the other bacterial STDs, syphilis can be treated effectively. However, a variety of factors have been shown to affect how well the treatment works. These include the stage of your syphilis infection, how often you use condoms, and whether or not you have HIV. In general, syphilis treatment is effective if the infection is caught early, and when you have a healthy immune system. Trichomoniasis Around the world, trichomoniasis is the most common curable STD. However, with the standard single-dose treatment, repeat infections occur somewhat frequently. Research shows that recurrence occurs around half as frequently with multi-dose treatments for trichomoniasis. Multi-dose trichomoniasis treatment is now the standard regimen for women with HIV. However, it is available for HIV-negative women as well. The other issue with trichomoniasis is that men are generally not tested, and therefore, are not usually treated, for the disease. While infections are generally less serious in men, they do need to be treated so that men won't keep from re-infecting their female partners. Condom Myths A Word From Verywell No one wants to see an STD come back after treatment. Fortunately, most of the STDs that are curable with antibiotics are also preventable by practicing safe sex. Using condoms, dental dams, and other barriers to make your sex life safer is an effective way to prevent bacterial STDs. However, it's important to use them consistently—for vaginal, anal, and oral intercourse. While it's best to practice prevention strategies all the time, if you skipped it or never used it, you start up again next time. STDs aren't necessarily transmitted every time you have sex, so it's never too late to start doing things more safely. The Best At-Home STD Tests Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life. Sign Up You're in! Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. What are your concerns? Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand Submit Article Sources Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Rank RG, Yeruva L. Hidden in plain sight: chlamydial gastrointestinal infection and its relevance to persistence in human genital infection. Infect Immun. 2014;82(4):1362-71. doi:10.1128/IAI.01244-13 Whittles LK, White PJ, Paul J, Didelot X. Epidemiological Trends of Antibiotic Resistant Gonorrhoea in the United Kingdom. Antibiotics (Basel). 2018;7(3). doi:10.3390/antibiotics7030060 Peeling RW, Mabey D, Kamb ML, Chen XS, Radolf JD, Benzaken AS. Syphilis. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2017;3:17073. doi:10.1038/nrdp.2017.73 Howe K, Kissinger PJ. Single-Dose Compared With Multidose Metronidazole for the Treatment of Trichomoniasis in Women: A Meta-Analysis. Sex Transm Dis. 2017;44(1):29-34. doi:10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000537 Van der pol B. Clinical and Laboratory Testing for Trichomonas vaginalis Infection. J Clin Microbiol. 2016;54(1):7-12. doi:10.1128/JCM.02025-15 Additional Reading Howe K, Kissinger PJ. Single-Dose Compared With Multidose Metronidazole for the Treatment of Trichomoniasis in Women: A Meta-Analysis. Sex Transm Dis. 2017 Jan;44(1):29-34. Rank RG, Yeruva L. Hidden in plain sight: chlamydial gastrointestinal infection and its relevance to persistence in human genital infection. Infect Immun. 2014 Apr;82(4):1362-71. doi: 10.1128/IAI.01244-13. Seña AC, Zhang XH, Li T, Zheng HP, Yang B, Yang LG, Salazar JC, Cohen MS, Moody MA, Radolf JD, Tucker JD. A systematic review of syphilis serological treatment outcomes in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected persons: rethinking the significance of serological non-responsiveness and the serofast state after therapy. BMC Infect Dis. 2015 Oct 28;15:479. doi: 10.1186/s12879-015-1209-0. van der Helm JJ, Koekenbier RH, van Rooijen MS, Schim van der Loeff MF, de Vries HJC. What Is the Optimal Time to Retest Patients With a Urogenital Chlamydia Infection? A Randomized Controlled Trial. Sex Transm Dis. 2018 Feb;45(2):132-137. doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000706. Weston EJ, Wi T, Papp J. Strengthening Global Surveillance for Antimicrobial Drug-Resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae through the Enhanced Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Program. Emerg Infect Dis. 2017 Oct;23(13). doi: 10.3201/eid2313.170443.