[Question #8623] Syphilis testing exposure

42 months ago

For some reason I thought I had one more response left to my other question a few months ago.

Anyhow….. my last sexual encounter was around 11/5/21.

My partner at that time had unprotected sex w a military person. She mentioned they test for HIV and stuff. As you know I was worried about that. One thing I didn’t think of was Syphilis.

I1) I had a blood test for syphilis on January 21st. It says rpr on the form. 10-11 weeks after the exposure. It was negative. Is that considered conclusive?

I did have a sore in the back of my tongue recently. It went away and then came back. On the right on the side of it towards the back of my mouth.

2) if there was a sore related to syphilis, the test would definitely be positive?

As always thank you for what you do.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

42 months ago

Welcome back -- but sorry you found it necessary for such simple and straightforward questions. Threads are closed after 28 days or after two follow-up comments and replies, whichever comes first.

As we discussed last time, you were at very low risk of HIV and other STIs, in part because of your partner's negative testing. My understanding is that syphilis is among the routine tests (along with HIV) in military personnel, so you could have safely assumed your partner didn't have it.

1) Negative rapid plasma reagin (RPR) syphilis tests are conclusive after about 8-10 weeks, so you had a conclusive result.

2) An oral sore coming on more than 3-4 weeks after a sexual exposure is too late for syphilis. And in your previous thread, you asked about syphilis test results and symptoms, and the answer hasn't changed: if the sore were due to syphilis, your RPR would have been positive.

Thanks for the thanks. I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

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41 months ago

Ok thank you so much Dr. H!

I did have a question as my partner (a woman) dated a man who was a drug user. Idk what kind of drugs but she said he was irrational. She noticed his veins were bulged. However, she told me they only kissed and it wasn’t an open mouth kiss. They didn’t have sex so she says but I don’t trust people. It just blew my mind she’d kiss someone who was k own to use drugs.

However, I open kissed her with tongue and sucked on her nipples. I don’t remember any open cuts in my mouth or anything.

If I did, would open mouth kissing with tongue with her, who previously kissed a known drug user (I assume the open mouth kissed) put ME at risk for HIV?

41 months ago

I should add this is a new person after I was tested for HIV

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

41 months ago

None of this remotely suggests your partner has HIV or that you might have it. And there are few if any known cases of HIV transmission by kissing, and oral exposure to skin (including nipples) is totally risk free. But of course you are free to be tested anyway if the negative result would help you stop worrying. Some people are more reassured by negative HIV test than by expert opinion. This does not mean I believe there is any chance at all you will test positive; I do not.---