Trying to distinquish between syphilis and healing folliculitis on the basis of time to healing while on doxycyline is not worth attempting.
Syphilis can occur anywhere, at any site of exposure. The penis is certainly more common than the scrotum.
Preventative antibiotics taken during periods when you think you might be at risk will just confuse things, just as taking it this time did. How can you say it helps with anxiety-look at your thread. You are anxious and the doxy has just confused things. I would hope you would learn that this is not a wise idea.
All of the activities you describe are considered safe. EWH
Thanks for the quick reply Dr. Hook. How long would it take for the "chancre" to cure after starting doxy if that were what it was.. Also, my derm said he almost always sees syphilis on the penis. Is that correct? Do you have any statistics on false negative based on days on doxy? The physician I saw first, to me was skeptical as I think he was a PA and not up to speed on STDs.
Can I ask, if I ever find myself in this situation again where I am concerned about an oral episode, what is a preventative dosage of doxy as I usually have extra from prostatitis treatment. I mean, is there a dose I can take immediately after exposure just in case? I am not condoning abuse of antibiotics, it is just if I have some, it beats weeks of anxiety and stress as we all make mistakes.
Also, what do I need to be most concerned with from an STD perspective, ie are the following relatively safe? mutual masturbation, fingering, touching (assuming I see no lesions). I know I need to be careful about HPV and herpes, but what about others for male to male.. statistically speaking and are there any "signs" I should look for? Thanks.
Welcome to the Forum. I'll try to help but your doxycycline will make it a bit difficult to be 100% sure.
Syphilis is a rare disease, in fact it is very rare with less than 10,000 cases occurring in the US, among a population of over 350 million. Furthermore, oral syphilis (it sounds as though your only exposures were oral) is a rarity among all cases of this rare disease. Finally, you have an excellent alternative explanation (folliculitis) which was considered by not one but two health care providers. All of this makes syphilis unlikely. Doxycycline is treatment for a very early syphilis infection and might have kept the RPR from being positive but given all the other things which argue against your lesion being syphilis, I would feel comfortable in telling you that there is almost no chance that the lesion you noted was syphilis and furthermore, would assure you that even in the tiny chance it was, the doxycycline would have cured it. At this point my advice is to put your concerns about syphilis aside and move forward. I see no reason for further concern of for additional testing . EWH