check the facts about syphilis
What is syphilis?
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a type of bacteria. You can get syphilis by having anal, oral, or vaginal sex with someone who has it. While many STDs are passed through body fluids, syphilis is passed through sexual contact with infected skin. Luckily, syphilis is curable.
Syphilis is a serious disease.
If not treated, syphilis can cause brain damage, permanent vision loss, heart disease, and other long-term health problems. Many of the serious effects of syphilis can happen in less than a year, particularly if you are HIV positive. The longer syphilis is in your body, the more likely it is to do permanent damage. So, it’s important to be tested at least every 6 months.
Having syphilis also makes it easier to get or give HIV. If you’re HIV positive, syphilis can increase your viral load and decrease your CD4 cell count, as well as make all the other effects of syphilis worse.
Symptoms of syphilis
Many people never notice any signs of syphilis. However, the first sign may be a painless sore (or sores) on or around your penis, scrotum, mouth, or anus. The sore goes away by itself in a few weeks, but you are still infected. A few months later, you may get a rash (often on the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet), fever, sore throat, and/or fatigue. These symptoms will also go away. But you will still have syphilis until you get cured.
Preventing syphilis
The best way to protect yourself from getting syphilis in the first place is to limit your number of sex partners. The more people you have sex with, the greater your chance of getting syphilis. If you have sex, using a condom correctly every time you have sex can reduce the risk of syphilis. While condoms are very effective at protecting against HIV, they may be less effective against syphilis because syphilis sores can happen outside of the area covered by condoms. You can also get syphilis from having oral sex. Avoiding alcohol and drugs, especially crystal meth, may also help prevent syphilis because usage can lead to risky sexual behavior.
