[Question #11604] Another follow up

13 months ago

Another follow up..

I have a “lesion” in my pubic hair area. About 1.5 weeks ago, it showed up and looked like a large pimple, from there i was able to pop it, which made it bleed at the time and then more bleed in my boxers days later. Once it cleared up it did show a pin hole crater type. But is healing now almost two weeks.

Questions;

Is that lesion of concern?

Tested negative via RPR at 7,38, 95 days. I understand the antibiotics would have cured syphilis but during those testing periods would I at least receive a reactive RPR during that time? Seems like RPR would be reactive and then would show titers.

Appreciate your response!

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

13 months ago

Welcome back, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. I'm taking this question, but I reviewed your two previous discussions with Dr. Hook. I agree with all he said.

You can't go through life attributing every trivial symptoms to the sexual exposure last March. This sounds like a standard pimple, nothing else -- and no STD causes such skin problems. And yes, if you had syphilis, your RPR would have been positive.

Do your best to entirely disregard the stripper event. No symptom you have now or in the future will have anything to do with that event.

HHH, MD

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13 months ago

Understood Dr!

It’s reassuring to hear that the treatment I did take would not stop my RPR from becoming reactive . At this point, I would have been reactive even with the meds. Time to try and move on.

13 months ago

Aka- my biggest concern was never knowing if I actuallY had it or not but it certainly sounds like if I did- tests would have been reactive regardless of my doxy

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

13 months ago

You misunderstand. Even if you were infected, the treatments DID prevent the RPR from being positive. That's because doxycycline (for sure) and cefixime (probably) would have aborted newly acquired syphilis, preventing the blood test from ever being positive -- even if you were infected. The negative results since then show only that you do not have syphilis now, and cannot distinguish between never having it and being infected but the infection aborted. However, given the extreme rarity of syphilis in such a situation, almost certainly you never were exposed to syphilis or infected. But you can never know for sure which it was.

In any case, you definitely can move on with no further worries about it.

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13 months ago

Understood. In that case one last question.. say I was infected, would it have been possible to transfer if I waited until 7-8 days after I finished my doxy cycle? Or no, since it was aborted enough to not even show a positive test.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

13 months ago

If you were infected -- and I stress again that probably you were not -- it could not have been transmitted to a sex partner sooner than 2-3 weeks later, and not once you took the first dose of doxycycline. Either way, it is not possible you have syphilis now or that you infected anyone else.

That concludes this thread. Please note the forum policy against repeated questions on the same topic. This being your third about this exposure and your resulting infection concerns, it will have to be your last. Excessive questions are deleted without reply, and without refund of the posting fee. Thank you for your understanding. I trust the three discussions have been helpful to you. Best wishes.

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