Shapes

Jan

08

Attack Of The Cursed Syphilis!

InterACTion:

 Sex. Drugs.
Love, lust and everything in between.
HIV and STIs.
Bars, baths and beyond.
Tell us what you think as we discuss a wide range of issues relevant to the health of gay men.
Don’t just sit there – InterACT!

Avatar Avatar1Avatar2Avatar3 Avatar4


divider

Ooooh… Scary stuff! Well, actually it is – when you consider we’ve seen a dramatic increase in infectious syphilis over the past seven years in Toronto. But what makes it scary? I mean, syphilis has been treatable for nearly a century, so why should we even care? Do you care? Are you concerned about the curse?

Well, having an active sexually transmitted infection can increase your risk of contracting HIV by up to nine times. Did you know that if you are already HIV+, syphilis can not only increase the possibility of transmitting HIV to an uninfected partner, but if left untreated, it can progress to advanced (tertiary) syphilis in as little as 12 months? Now that is some scary shit.

Add to the mix that many people either don’t recognize the primary symptoms of syphilis, or have no symptoms at all.

So how do you avoid it? Well, the risk can be reduced by using a condom for anal and oral sex. I know, I know… Broken record… Use a condom, same old story. But it is still the most effective way we know to reduce risk. There are other ways, too. But you are a mature and sophisticated blog reader. You tell us: how have you avoided syphilis in the past? If you did get syphilis, how did you know/find out? What did you do? Where did you go for help?

- Harry

Tags:   · · · ·

Bookmark and Share

1 Comments For This Post

  1. Koala Says:
    January 11th, 2010 at 2:55 am

    I have had two brushes with syphilis… a case and a scare.

    The case…once upon a time in a bathhouse not so far away, I hooked up with a guy who was everything you ever dreamed of. Sigh……so much so, that after the debauchery I abandoned my usual anonymity and hastily scrawled my email address on the nearest piece of paper I could find and suggested that we should do it all again.

    Well, many weeks passed, and – you guessed it – no message from bathhouse hunk in my inbox. Oh well, as they say in Montreal, cést la vie!

    Then, a sequence of troubling events unfolded. I started to feel very lethargic (rationalised away as overworked and underappreciated by the boy friend!) then my palms and feet developed most impressive red splotches.

    My GP was going down the track of chronic fatigue syndrome (gulp!) when, out of the blue, I get an email from the aforementioned bathhouse hunk…… “I have syphilis, you should get tested!………..”

    In less time than it takes for a Canadian to bristle at the US border, I was in my GP’s surgery asking for a full STI check.
    Fast forward… OMG!! .. I have syphilis! I felt so dirty and down.
    Yet.. a few deep breaths and a surprisingly painless penicillin jab in each butt cheek later and I was on my way to redemption. My GP warned me that I should drive straight home and rest in bed as the penicillin would start working soon and that I would experience fever and start to shiver… He was SO right. (Gay men are NOT a pretty sight when under the weather!!)

    What did I learn? Well, on the upside, syphilis is readily treated (cured) with antibiotics so it just reinforced to me the value of routine sexual health checkups (I doesn’t hurt that my GP is off the chart on the gay hunkiness scale!!)
    On the downside, “primary” syphilis can sneak by with few symptoms and carry on to the “secondary” stage (the rash, the lethargy that I had). Worse still, if still untreated, it progresses to tertiary syphilis, which can cause irreversible brain / nerve damage!! (think King Henry VIII who reputedly went insane after a long co-existence with syphilis!)

    The brush… I was sitting at my PC in my Bay-Wellesley condo when I got one of those inspot (www.inspot.org) email thingies that anonymously advises you that a sex partner has syphilis!!… Oh no.. not again!!
    I dashed off to the Hassle Free Clinic, sat in the waiting room for a surprisingly short time before being poked, prodded and trested.
    Again fast forward… no syphilis….. Yayyyyyyyy!!!!!!

    So, what have I learned?
    - syphilis is JUST an STI and with regular checking (3 monthly in my slutty case) any health problems can be avoided
    - its better to test and (if needed) get treated than risk long term damage (Hassle Free Clinic’s staff were very understanding)
    - rather than fear syphilis (or any other STI)- organise regular testing to protect yourself.
    - boned up (pardon the pun!) on syphilis transmission…. Hmmm.. OK, condoms are a given for HIV prevention, but syphilis is mostly transmitted from a syphilis sore /lesion so a condom only helps if the lesion is on the cock!! OK.. so I wanna give head, a condom will help in reducing transmission risk, but if the syphilis sore is on his ball or lip this isn’t going to help!

    My main takeaway message is that STI’s are NOT a flag that you are a bad / slutty person… rather, that they are just a common consequence of a healthy sex life… keep up the healthy sex life.. just build in an STI screen!!

Leave a Reply