20 | OutBoise Magazine | NEWS
Your Health
OutBoisemag.com | Issue 18 | April 2016
by Chris Bidiman
Holy syphilis, Batman!
In case you hadn’t heard, syphilis is on the rise
across the country and here in the Treasure Valley.
Now that we’ve gotten the scary, ominous statement out of the way, let’s talk about what this really
means. We are long past the days of such extreme
dementia that you cut off your ear (unless you’re
Stage. This is the time that you may notice a rash
a very devoted artist, I suppose). While late stage
developing, often on the palms of the hands or the
syphilis is still a possibility, it can take several
soles of the feet, but it may develop on multiple
years after acquisition to develop.
parts of your body. You may also notice other symptoms such as, fatigue, fever, swollen lymph glands,
Syphilis is a bit tricky in that in has various
muscle aches, etc. It’s easy to see how syphilis
stages, with different symptoms for each stage.
could be treated as something more commonly as-
Even trickier is that it can present symptoms that
sociated with those symptoms…like the flu. Just like
are often confused for other illnesses, causing it to
the chancre, these symptoms will subside and go
often be a missed diagnosis.
away on their own, entering the Latent Stage.
About 3 weeks post-acquisition, you will develop
Left untreated, Late Stage syphilis can develop.
a chancre, a small, firm, painless sore at the initial
While it may not be common, and it may take sev-
point of entry (wherever the infected body fluid
eral years to develop, it is not something to ignore.
came in contact with you). Depending on where
This is the stage we most often think about when
the point of entry is, the chancre will often times
discussing syphilis. At this point, you may experi-
go unnoticed. To make Primary Stage syphilis even
ence difficulty coordinate muscle movies, dementia,
more difficult to identify, the chancre will heal and
and even blindness and death (okay, that’s a dra-
go away on its own.
matic statement; however, left untreated Late Stage
syphilis can cause major damage to internal organs
Afterwards, the syphilis progresses to Secondary
and can, in fact, be fatal).