Worried about Syphilis

[hypomess]

Hello, I got really scared yesterday when I came up with some pictures on the web about syphillis symtptoms in the tongue. About 16 years ago I noticed things in my tongue, it all began with a sort of circle without papillae at the back left hand side of my tongue. It was there for a couple of days, then went away, at that time I was 18 years old so did not make much of it. But then I noticed that once in a while it came back and moved around the tongue,on the back side, it did not hurt, just someties it burned. Searching the web I found out something called geographic tongue, which pretty much resembled a lot what I was seeing happening in my mouth.
That was at the beginning, ever since I have had that, years before it was wuite bad, but now at days is quite mild, this has happened during all this time all around my tongue, at the sides, front part, sometimes my tongue had only half of the papillaes you could say, I wake up in the morining and I see this grayish lines, that eating or brusihng they disaapear, leaving only red mark, they change everyday, sometimes my tongue is completelhy normal and  then you see it on it again. The picture I saw on the web regardin secondary manifestation of syphillis, looked identical to what I had.
I do not remmeber having any chacre anywhere, nor ever having a rash. The thing is that around 2 years after this began, I saw a kind of pimple thing in my penis shaft, got quite afraid and starts poppign it, it developed a grain which I removed, remember a good amount of blood came out. It actually never went away, I am so afraid of terrible news anda hypochondriac I must add, did not visit the doctor. 18 years later, this year I got the gutts and went to an urologist to have it checked out, thinking it might have been a wart, he looked at it, it had a small grain whihc he removed, blood came out and he gave me a cream for the swelling. I thought at first it could have been warts, or molluscum contagiosum, he told me that it was not of that and not STD realted, even though it is not common, but what I had was folliculitis there, had nothing to worry about. It did not look like a chancre at all, it was maybe 4mm wide, it looked more like scar tissue, it was no open sore.
So, please can somebdoy help me with this. I am really freake dout that what I have in my tongue could be syphillis related and that I misstook for geographic tongue.
1. Do these patches on the tongue resolve themselves or like in my case, is a recurrent thing? sometimes I have it, then maybe 2 days later it is gone and reappears someplace else?
2. Untreated syphillis can last this long without any harm done? 16 years

Any insight. I have never had an STD screening, only taken HIV tests.

will appreciate any information given here.

[Vance2335]

You were told not syphilis. Seek a health care provider, you want to rule this or that out well we are not going to be able to do that.

[hypomess]

Thank you, probably these patches that remove papillae from my tongue and grows back couple days later should be Geographic Tongue. I must say that now at days it is pretty mild, at the beginning it was terrible, had constant outbreaks, really bad ones. It began on the back of my tongue, but these last years it is only on the sides and front of my tongue. Everytime it was a patch that most of the time grew in size, then recovered papillae days or hours later, sometimes new ones began pretty close to the old ones when they were recovering. Whenever I ate somethign that had artificial color like candy, the area without papillae never got the color.
Should rule out syphillis or oral thrush I guess.

[gracefromHHP]

you need to stop thinking syphilis. you wouldn't be having tongue rashes from it this many years into infection. also they won't come and go like this.

[hypomess]

Just want to know,incase you develope mucous patches in tongue during syphillis, how long would they be present? couple of days, weeks? I ask this because all the patches I have presented since that time, last at most 3 days, then the tongue becomes normal again, sometimes new ones appear in other areas.

[hypomess]

Will definitely do that. What I meant with geographic lesions, is that in the morning sometimes you can see this grayish white patch or lines, that once you brush your teeth or eat, they dissappear, in ither words, they removeby themselves, then during the day or couple of days your tongue becomes completely normal again, without those patches. this I was wondering if happens with syplhillis tongue patchees,

[gracefromHHP]

geographic tongue lesions can't be removed with brushing either.

as vance and I have both said now, follow up on this properly with an exam so you get better answers and can stop worrying :)

[Vance2335]

see your dentist or doctor for an exam if you are concerned.

[hypomess]

Thnak you very much. do you have knowledge of geographic tongue? they kind of resemble the patches in the tongue due to syphillis. Youmention that this patches cannot be removed, that is something good to know, because all of the patches or plaques taht happens in my tongue removes with food or brushing, and you can see the lost of papillae. More than withish plaques, they resemble grayish white.
hope your appreciation is correct, I actually never thought about this until I saw this pictures.
It has been 16 yesrs since I first saw one of them in mu tongue, it all mentioned geographic tongue, so that is why I was not afraid.
thank you

[gracefromHHP]

no, you can't remove syphilis patches.

really, your symptoms don't sound at al llike syphilis. see your dentist or doctor for an exam if you are concerned.

[hypomess]

thank you very much for your reply, it calms my fears quite a bit. Just adding, I read that latent stage of syphillis can las many years, even decades, that is why I got worried.
Do you know if the mucous patches that appear  with syphillis last many days o r they can be gone 2 or 3 days after they appeared? Also, can you remove them whern brushing your tetth or not? Do they come and go, or usually you see the patch there?
Thank you