The first symptom of syphilis is a sore that doesn’t bleed or hurt and appears after direct contact with someone else’s syphilis wound. This wound may take 3 to 12 weeks to appear and releases a clear liquid when rubbed.
This wound tends to go away on its own without any treatment, but that does not mean that the disease has healed; in fact, it moves on to the second stage.
- Syphilis can occur in four different ways: primary.
- Secondary.
- Tertiary.
- And congenital.
- Which occurs when a pregnant woman with syphilis does not follow treatment and transmits the disease to the baby.
- Each form of syphilis has its own characteristics:.
Primary syphilis is the initial stage of the disease, which occurs approximately 3 weeks after infection. This stage is characterized by the appearance of hard lumps, small red lesions on the genitals that eventually disappear at 4 or 5 weeks without leaving scars.
In men these sores usually appear around the foreskin, while in women they appear on small lips, or small lips, and on the vaginal wall; This sore can also appear in the anus and mouth, as well as on the tongue, the breasts swollen lymph nodes may also appear in or near the affected area during this stage.
After the disappearance of hard injuries, which is a period of inactivity that can last six to eight weeks, the disease will re-activate, this time it will affect the skin and internal organs, as the bacteria will spread throughout the body.
The new lesions are characterized by pink spots or small brown bumps that appear on the skin, mouth, nose, palms and plants of the feet, and sometimes there may be intense peeling of the skin. Other possible symptoms include:
This phase continues during the first two years of the disease and occurs in the form of epidemics that spontaneously recede but last longer.
Tertiary syphilis occurs in people who have not been able to spontaneously control the disease in its secondary stage or who have not received adequate treatment, at this stage syphilis is characterized by:
These symptoms usually appear 10 to 30 years after the initial infection, and when the individual is not treated, to avoid complications in other organs of the body, treatment should be done shortly after the onset of the first symptoms of syphilis.
Congenital syphilis occurs when the baby becomes infected with syphilis during pregnancy, and this occurs when the woman has syphilis and does not treat it.
Syphilis during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, malformations or death of the baby at birth. In live babies, symptoms may appear between the first few weeks of life and up to more than 2 years after birth, including:
Treatment of congenital syphilis is usually done with 2 penicillin injections for 10 days or 2 penicillin injections for 14 days, depending on the child’s age.
Syphilis is curable and can be easily treated with penicillin injections, but treatment must be started as soon as possible to avoid serious complications in other organs such as the brain, heart, and eyes, for example.
To confirm that these are syphilis, your doctor should check the person’s intimate area and confirm if the person has had condom-free sexual contact. If there are no ulcers in your genital area or other parts of your body, your doctor may order a test. called VDRL that identifies Treponema pallidum in the body.
This test is usually done quarterly for all pregnant women because syphilis is a serious disease that the mother can pass on to the baby, but is easily cured by antibiotics prescribed by the doctor.
Learn more about syphilis in this interview (turn on captions in video options):