Syphlis Testing

I am now 31 and about 13 years ago I had a scab on my penis and around the same time I had painful sores in my mouth and I do remember having some kind of blood blister under the skin rash on my palms. I never was tested or thought about it. About 6 years ago I started having anxiety and have become obsessed with trying to find out what is wrong with me. I am concerned that I have late stage syphlis. I went and had a full STD panel done in Sep 2007 and everything was negative including the syphlis RPR test. I went ahead and ordered the FTA-ABS syphlis test to make sure and it came back negative as well.

Should this ease my fears of having syphlis? Or do sometime both the RPR test and the FTA-ABS test turn negative after a possible 13 years of having syphlis?

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

The test results prove with 100% certainty you do not have syphilis and never did.  Once positive, the FTA-ABS test remains positive for life, with only one exception:  if syphilis is diagnosed and treated during the primary stage, some people's FTA-ABS results become negative.  Since you were never treated, this is not a possible explanation in your case.

On top of that, the symptoms you describe don't sound like syphilis.  It's a pretty rare infection, except in selected populations.  There are only around 20,000 new cases per year in the entire United States.

Bottom line:  you don't have syphilis.  You'll need to work with your health care provider to look to other explanations for yoru symptoms.

Regards--  HHH, MD