Syphilis stays in your body if it is not treated. It can damage your heart, brain, eyes, and other organs. This damage may not show up for many years and could kill you. You might also pass the disease on to other people.
Untreated syphilis infection can lead to irreversible neurological and cardiovascular complications. Depending on the stage, neurosyphilis can manifest as meningitis, stroke, cranial nerve palsies during early neurosyphilis or tabes dorsalis, dementia, and general paresis during late neurosyphilis.
Late Stage — 1 out of 3 people who have syphilis that's not treated suffer serious damage to their nervous system, heart, brain, or other organs, which can even kill you. This stage can occur 1–20 years after the start of your infection.
If syphilis is not treated, it can cause serious health problems, including neuralgic (brain and nerve) problems, eye problems, and even blindness. In addition, syphilis is linked to an increased risk of transmission of HIV infection.
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.
Yes. Penicillin is the first-choice treatment for every stage of syphilis. It usually cures the disease. If you are allergic to penicillin, your health care provider can use a different medicine unless you are pregnant.
Meningeal syphilis can occur between the first few weeks to the first few years of getting syphilis. Individuals with meningeal syphilis can have headache, stiff neck, nausea, and vomiting. Sometimes there can also be loss of vision or hearing.
This stage begins when symptoms from the secondary stage disappear. Syphilis isn't contagious at this point, but the infection has started to affect your organs. This can lead to death.
Up to 40% of babies born to people with untreated syphilis die from the infection. It's most common to spread the infection to the fetus during pregnancy.
The characteristic rash of secondary syphilis may appear as rough, red, or reddish brown spots both on the palms of the hands and the bottoms of the feet. However, rashes with a different appearance may occur on other parts of the body, sometimes resembling rashes caused by other diseases.
Signs and Symptoms of Syphilis in Females. The characteristic sign of syphilis is the appearance of a sore, known as a chancre, on the infected area. These sores are firm, round, and painless, though they can potentially burst and become open and wet. This is also when the bacterial infection is at its most contagious.
Secondary Stage syphilis symptoms take the form of a mild red rash. Other symptoms can include swollen lymph nodes, body aches, feelings of fatigue, weight loss, headaches, fevers, hair loss, or sore throats.
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by a type of bacteria. If it's not treated by a doctor, it can get worse over time and cause serious health problems. The infection can be active at times and not active at other times.
Ocular syphilis may lead to decreased visual acuity including permanent blindness. Ocular syphilis can be associated with neurosyphilis. Both ocular syphilis and neurosyphilis can occur at any stage of syphilis, including primary and secondary syphilis.
Neurosyphilis usually occurs about 10 to 20 years after a person is first infected with syphilis. Not everyone who has syphilis develops this complication.
Syphilis begins with a painless sore at the infection site and, in the second stage, causes a rash, fever, fatigue, headache, and loss of appetite.
Blood tests to look for evidence of the bacteria that cause syphilis. Lumbar puncture (spinal tap), which is a procedure in which a healthcare provider inserts a needle into your lower back to get a sample of CSF. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis to look for evidence of the bacteria in your CSF under a microscope.
Early syphilis infections can be easily treated with antibiotics (usually penicillin), even during pregnancy. In late stage syphilis infections, treatment at any time can stop further illness and cure the infection itself, though it does not repair any damaged organs.
About 15% to 30% of people infected with syphilis who don't get treatment will develop complications known as tertiary syphilis. In the late stage, the disease may damage the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones and joints. These problems may occur many years after the original, untreated infection.
You can live a normal life, but it's important to take precautions to protect others. First, get treatment and wait until a healthcare provider tells you you are cured before you have sexual activity. If syphilis progresses to the last stage, it can affect many vital organs and be life-threatening.
Syphilis rashes are often red or brown and usually don't itch. Other symptoms may include fever, sore throat, muscle aches, headaches, hair loss, and feeling tired. These symptoms may go away on their own. If you don't get treatment, the disease will progress to the next stage.
Syphillis Worst Case Scenario: If left untreated, syphilis can cause soft, spongy balls of inflammation all over the body and bones, large sores on the skin and inside the body, internal bleeding, enlargement of the liver and/or spleen, deformations, loss of motor functions, seizures, dementia, aneurysm, and even death ...
Syphilis is a chronic, classic sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum, which can invade almost all organs of the body and produce various symptoms and signs. Although there are some cases of colorectal bleeding caused by syphilis, small intestinal bleeding caused by syphilis is still rare.