Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection (STI). You can become infected with syphilis simply from close contact with an infected person’s genitals, mouth, or rectum. You don’t have to have sexual intercourse to get syphilis. If syphilis is not treated it can eventually cause serious health problems, even death.

The infection can be active at times and not active at other times. When the infection is active, you have symptoms. When it’s not active, you don’t have symptoms, but you still have syphilis and can pass it on.

An infected pregnant woman may suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth or can pass syphilis to her baby. Experts recommend that all pregnant women have a syphilis blood test.

If finding out that you have an STI makes you feel bad about yourself or about sex, counseling or a support group may help you feel better.

Some things increase your chance of getting syphilis:

• Having unprotected sex
• Having more than one sex partner
• Living in an area where syphilis is common
• Having a sex partner who has syphilis
• Having sex with a partner who has many sex partners
• Trading sex for drugs or money
• Having HIV

Syphilis symptoms

Syphilis progresses through 4 stages:

• Primary stage
  • One of the first signs is a painless open sore called a chancre (“SHANK-er”)
  • Chancres are often found in the mouth, the anus, or genital area
• Secondary stage
  • A skin rash and other symptoms may show up 2 to 8 weeks after infection
  • Syphilis is easy to spread through contact with the skin rash
• Latent stage
  • Once the skin rash disappears, you may be symptom-free for up to 20 years
  • Even if you don’t have symptoms, the bacteria that cause syphilis are still in the body and begin to damage the internal organs
  • A woman with latent-stage syphilis may only find out she’s infected when her child is born with syphilis
• Late stage
  • If syphilis is not treated in its early stages it can cause blindness, problems with the nervous system and the heart, mental disorders, and even death.

Diagnosing syphilis

See your doctor if:

• If you have sores, bumps, a rash, blisters, or warts on or around your genital or anal area
• If you think you were exposed to an STI

Your doctor will do a physical exam and probably give you one or more blood tests to check for the infection. Because the open sores from syphilis make HIV infection more likely, you may also be tested for HIV.

Treating syphilis

At any stage of the infection, antibiotics work well to cure syphilis. They can’t undo the damage already caused by late-stage syphilis, but they can prevent further problems. You and your sex partner need to take the medicine to keep from passing the infection back and forth.

Syphilis must be treated with medicine only your doctor can give you. This is not something you can treat on your own.

Preventing syphilis

• Talk with your partner about STIs. Find out whether he or she is at risk for them. A person can be infected without knowing it.
• Remember, every time you have sex with a new partner, you’re being exposed to all the infections their partners may have.
• Do not have sex with anyone who has symptoms or has been exposed to a STI.
• Use a latex or polyurethane condom every time you have sex to reduce the risk of spreading syphilis, but they do not protect the entire genital area against skin-to-skin contact.
• Be responsible. Don’t have sex if you have symptoms or are being treated for an STI.
• Save sex for later. Delay sex with a new partner until both of you have been tested for STIs.