Syphilis
Until the last few years less and less Syphilis was being diagnosed, but in Delaware, it is increasing among men who have sex with men. Anyone who is having sex should be aware of their risk, and the more partners you have the greater your risk of infection.

How do you get syphilis?

Syphilis is a bacterial infection which is most usually transmitted through having anal or vaginal sex without a condom and oral sex, but which can also be caught through rimming, fisting and even through skin to skin contact (It is extremely powerful and can penetrate even ordinary skin where there are tiny cuts or grazes.)

How do you prevent it?

Using condoms will prevent many cases of syphilis. If you wanted to reduce the risks further, you would have to use condoms for oral sex. Oral sex carries a risk even if there is no exchange of bodily fluids.

How do you know you’ve got it?

The symptoms develop in four stages:

• Stage 1 (also known as primary syphilis): a small painless sore or hardened lump will appear one to ten weeks after infection, near the point where the bacteria entered your body. This could be your butt, penis, or mouth. It’s possible for this to go unnoticed, especially if it is in your butt.
  
  
• Stage 2 (aka secondary syphilis): up to two to six months later, you may experience a rash on the body and a flu-like illness involving fever, headache, and sore throat. The symptoms between stage one and stage two may be mild and difficult to spot.
  
  
• Stage 3 (aka early latent syphilis): At this stage syphilis usually has no symptoms but as the infection at this stage is established in the blood it can be easily transmitted to sexual partners.
  
  
• Stage 4 (aka late latent syphilis): Here’s the bad bit – after a couple of years, if left untreated, syphilis will stop being contagious to sexual partners but at this stage the infection can cause blindness, deafness, brain damage, heart attacks, paralysis, lung problems and strokes.

How do you treat it?

Get to your doctor or a local sexual health clinic!

Treatment

The usual test is very simple - the doctor takes a small amount of blood.
It takes about a week for the results to come back from the clinic and the treatment is simple antibiotics.

Syphilis is generally treated with a course of penicillin injections or doxycycline tablets over two or three weeks. The injections are given by your doctor or at a sexual health clinic.

Once treated, it is important to make sure that the infection has been properly killed off - this is done by regular blood tests for three months after the treatment is finished.

After treatment, one of the blood tests for syphilis will continue to show positive. This just shows that there was a past infection and doesn’t mean that you still have it.

Once you have been treated you are not immune to Syphilis. You can still get the infection again so it’s still a good idea to have the occasional check-up - as often as you need to, depending on how many people you have sex with.

Prevention

Syphilis is difficult to prevent if you are sexually active as it is easily passed on through most forms of sex and often goes unrecognized. Using condoms and other barrier methods for anal and oral sex will offer a reasonable degree of protection.

Because Syphilis is so easily caught and passed on, it is a good idea to discuss it with any recent partners - as far back as when you first got the infection.