If gonorrhea is a treatable bacterial infection, why do so many women experience serious damage and even infertility because the gonorrhea was left untreated? Symptoms can be mild or mistaken for other issues, often leaving the untreated infection to spread to the reproductive organs to do damage that cannot be repaired Symptoms can be so mild that the doctors believe the antibiotics cleared the infection when it really has spread to other organs where it does permanent damage Antibiotics only work if they are administered within the first week of the infection, and symptoms do not appear until at least two weeks after contraction Antibiotics are developed to treat specific strains of gonorrhea, but the infection changes quickly and new strains are not as easily detected and treated