If syphilis is diagnosed and treated early enough, it can be thoroughly cured. With treatment, secondary syphilis will most likely go away within a few weeks to a year.
If secondary syphilis goes untreated and your symptoms go away, you will still have the latent form of syphilis. The latent stage is a symptom-free period that can last for many years. You may never again develop symptoms. Without treatment, however, you have a greater chance of progressing to the tertiary stage of syphilis.
This can lead to many serious complications, including brain damage and death. Make an appointment with your doctor as soon as you have any concerns so you can be tested and treated as soon as possible. See some examples and descriptions.
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Learn more. Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Pictures of secondary syphilis. How is syphilis transmitted? What are the symptoms of secondary syphilis? All pregnant women should be tested for syphilis at the first prenatal visit. Some women need to be tested again during the third trimester 28 weeks gestation and at delivery. This includes women who live in areas of high syphilis morbidity, are previously untested, had a positive screening test in the first trimester, or are at higher risk for syphilis i.
Depending on how long a pregnant woman has been infected, she may have a high risk of having a stillbirth or of giving birth to a baby who dies shortly after birth. Untreated syphilis in pregnant women results in infant death in up to 40 percent of cases. An infected baby born alive may not have any signs or symptoms of disease. However, if not treated immediately, the baby may develop serious problems within a few weeks.
Untreated babies may become developmentally delayed, have seizures, or die. All babies born to mothers who test positive for syphilis during pregnancy should be screened for syphilis and examined thoroughly for evidence of congenital syphilis. Treponemal tests e. Treponemal antibodies appear earlier than nontreponemal antibodies and usually remain detectable for life, even after successful treatment.
If a treponemal test is used for screening and the results are positive, a nontreponemal test with titer should be performed to confirm diagnosis and guide patient management decisions. Based on the results, further treponemal testing may be indicated. Reverse sequence testing can identify persons previously treated for syphilis and those with untreated syphilis. False-positive results can occur in those with low likelihood of infection with reverse sequence testing as well.
Special note: Because untreated syphilis in a pregnant woman can infect her developing baby, every pregnant woman should have a blood test for syphilis. All women should be screened at their first prenatal visit. Some patients should receive a second test during the third trimester at 28 weeks and again at delivery. All infants born to mothers who have reactive nontreponemal and treponemal test results should be evaluated for congenital syphilis.
A quantitative nontreponemal test should be performed on infant serum and, if reactive, the infant should be examined thoroughly for evidence of congenital syphilis. Suspicious lesions, body fluids, or tissues e.
Other recommended evaluations may include analysis of cerebrospinal fluid by VDRL, cell count and protein, CBC with differential and platelet count, and long-bone radiographs. For further guidance on evaluation of infants for congenital syphilis, please refer to the STI Treatment Guidelines.
There is an estimated 2- to 5-fold increased risk of acquiring HIV if exposed to that infection when syphilis is present. The recommended treatment for adults and adolescents with primary, secondary, or early latent syphilis is Benzathine penicillin G 2. The recommended treatment for adults and adolescents with late latent syphilis or latent syphilis of unknown duration is Benzathine penicillin G 7.
The recommended treatment for neurosyphilis, ocular syphilis, or otosyphilis is Aqueous crystalline penicillin G million units per day, administered as million units intravenously every 4 hours or continuous infusion, for days. Treatment will prevent disease progression, but it might not repair damage already done. Selection of the appropriate penicillin preparation is important to properly treat and cure syphilis.
Untreated babies can have health problems such as cataracts, deafness, or seizures, and can die. During the first primary stage of syphilis, you may notice a single sore or multiple sores.
The sore is the location where syphilis entered your body. Sores are usually but not always firm, round, and painless. Because the sore is painless, it can easily go unnoticed. The sore usually lasts 3 to 6 weeks and heals regardless of whether or not you receive treatment. Even after the sore goes away, you must still receive treatment. This will stop your infection from moving to the secondary stage. Mucous membrane lesions are sores in your mouth, vagina, or anus.
This stage usually starts with a rash on one or more areas of your body. The rash can show up when your primary sore is healing or several weeks after the sore has healed. Other symptoms you may have can include fever, swollen lymph glands, sore throat, patchy hair loss, headaches, weight loss, muscle aches, and fatigue feeling very tired. The symptoms from this stage will go away whether or not you receive treatment.
Without the right treatment, your infection will move to the latent and possibly tertiary stages of syphilis. The latent stage of syphilis is a period of time when there are no visible signs or symptoms of syphilis. If you do not receive treatment, you can continue to have syphilis in your body for years without any signs or symptoms. Most people with untreated syphilis do not develop tertiary syphilis. However, when it does happen it can affect many different organ systems.
These include the heart and blood vessels, and the brain and nervous system. Tertiary syphilis is very serious and would occur 10—30 years after your infection began.
The long-term illnesses that tend to accompany the tertiary side effects of syphilis are glaucoma, cataract, epiretinal membrane, and macular edema. So, even if you end up living out a longish life, you still run the risk of partial, if not complete, vision loss. The last thing you want to think about after contracting a debilitating sexually transmitted disease is the fact that you're now more likely to catch another, more deadly, disease. This doesn't happen every time, but because syphilis leaves your body completely defenseless to infection, it makes the transmission of HIV incredibly easy.
This is not to say that everyone who has syphilis has HIV, but if you're still having unprotected sex as the infection turns your body in an ooze factory, you could potentially receive and share HIV with frightening ease. Everything about syphilis is terrible, but if there were one thing about it that is worse than having oozing lesions, eye failure, or a slowly dimming brain, it would be the fact that you could have an aneurysm at any time.
Syphilitic aneurysms are caused by cardiovascular syphilis, which occurs 10 to 30 years after the onset of the initial syphilis, with the heart and vascular system being infected by the pathogenic bacteria. It causes the inflammation of arteries with constriction and injures the heart valves, resulting in medical emergencies, such as an aneurysm, heart attack, or even death.
And, if we're being honest, if you have syphilis and suffer an aneurysm or a heart attack, you're probably going to die. The volcanic anger that accompanies many syphilitics into the final stages of their ailment is likely tied into the fact that this "chameleon" of STDs vigorously attacks the brain after it's finished covering your body with lesions and pus.
For a long time it was believed that Vladimir Lenin died from a stroke, but now doctors believe that he ended his life confined to a wheelchair with rapidly decreasing mental faculties because of the syphilis he contracted from a Parisian prostitute in By the end of his life, Lenin's behavior was erratic and his moods swung wildly from almost vegetative to furiously angry and manic.
One of the more frightening aspects of this tertiary stage is that while it has left some people confined to a wheelchair, softly humming to themselves for the rest of their lives, others are stricken with pain in the extremities, incontinence, and shaky, unsteady movements. It all depends on how your body chemistry reacts to the STD. There really isn't another disease that's more of a roll-of-the-dice than syphilis. Franz Schubert, one of the most famous victims of syphilis, struggled through the last six years of his life with the disease.
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