Prevention/Solution

• The most important part of treating syphilis is catching it early. When it is diagnosed early on, penicillin can be used to kill the bacterium that leads to the disease. This antibiotic is usually given as an injection into a muscle or as a medicine put into a vein through an IV. Other antibiotics can be used to treat those who are allergic to penicillin. Never attempt to treat syphilis with over-the-counter treatments or home remedies; they wonit work.
  
  

Time Frame

• If you've had syphilis for less than 1 year, you may only need one dose to cure the condition. However, you'll likely need additional doses if you've been infected for more than 1 year. Also, your doctor will probably need to perform blood tests 3 months, 6 months and 1 year after treatment to ensure your dose is working as expected. Until your doctor has performed a final blood test and stated that you are 100-percent free of the disease, avoid sexual contact to prevent the spread of the disease. Additionally, abstain from sex until any syphilis-related sores heal. Any sexual partners you had before the disease was discovered and treated should be tested for syphilis as well and treated if necessary.
  
  

Identification

• Sometimes, people with syphilis are unaware of the condition because they do not have obvious symptoms. For example, the painless sore, called a chancre, that marks the first stage of the disease may be inside the mouth, vagina or rectum, where it isn't readily visible. For this reason, it is wise to be tested for this and other sexually transmitted diseases on a regular basis if you have unprotected sex with multiple partners, or with a single partner who may have sex with others.
  
  

Effects

• A person can have untreated syphilis for years before it does serious damage to the body or becomes fatal. For example, a person may have secondary syphilis for 2 years before moving to the next stage. Symptoms at this stage, which include a brown rash, fever, swollen glands and a sore throat, may disappear altogether, only to return again at a later date. Tertiary syphilis is a late stage of the condition that may last for decades and is marked by such serious complication as blindness, heart and liver disease, bone problems and joint damage. At this stage, the condition is far more difficult to treat, but a cure is still possible.
  
  

Warning

• When syphilis isn't treated, the result can be serious. Health complications are common with untreated syphilis, and it can even be fatal. Unborn children are particularly vulnerable to the disease, which can lead to birth defects or death in the womb. As such, it's important to seek medical advice right away if you experience symptoms of the disease, which include painless sores on the body, swollen lymph nodes near the groin, fever, fatigue and soreness. In the initial stage, your only symptom may be a single painless sore that shows up at whatever point the bacterium entered the body.