I got it and its dropped.
Thank you very much for your time and patience.
No chance. Please get this straight and then drop it: the test results prove you did not catch syphilis and have not transmitted syphilis to your wife.
No more comments on this thread.
I got my test results today - Good News! – all negative.
HIV - Negative
Amplified Chlamydia – Neg
Amplified Gonorrhea – Neg
Syphilis RPR – Non-Reactive
Needless to say I am much relieved.
I have one last concern about my wife and will have no other questions. I stated in my original post that I had two encounters about a year ago. I was traveling a great deal that entire year and am not exactly sure when the two encounters occurred but they were months apart. To be safe, I would say they occurred between 12 and 19 months ago.
Is there any possibility that my RPR test would be non-reactive after 19 months if I was originally infected back at that time with the possibility of infecting my wife along the way before I became non-reactive?
Or are we home free?
That event has no bearing on the current situation. Probably you were not exposed to syphilis back then. In those years, the standard belief was exactly as you describe it: people with gonorrhea were given antibiotics that would also cure syphilis, in case the person had been exposed. For the past 25+ years, however, syphilis has been much more rare and gonorrhea treatment does not necessarily cover syphilis. But if you were in fact exposued, you didn't catch it or the treatment cured it before the infection caught hold.
Report back if there is a big surprise and this turns out to be related to syphilis after all. But I don't expect that and other than that I won't have anything more to say.
Thank you for your response.
Regarding my test for syphilis-
When I was 18 years old, which is 38 years ago, I had sex with a girl from high school. The next morning I had a discharge. I went to the Health Dept that same day or the very next day to get tested and also informed the girl about it so she could get tested. My test came back positive for gonorrhea and negative for syphilis. Her tests came back positive for both gonorrhea and syphilis. The doctor explained to me that since I was tested so soon after the sexual contact that the syphilis test would be expected to be negative. However, he said that it was important to treat me as if I has been infected with syphilis as a precaution. After the course of antibiotics was completed I was retested and STD free.
Although I never actually had a positive test result for syphilis, would the current test for syphilis be affected by me previous exposure?
Welcome to the STD forum.
There is no realistic chance your wife's rash is an STD related to your indiscretions last year, or that it is related to those events in any way. The only STD that causes a body rash is syphilis, and that is too low a risk from such exposures to be a realistic consideration. Most likely your tests included a blood test for syphilis. You can expect it to be negative. And no, syphilis is transmitted only by sex, not through food preparation.
Your wife of course should see a health care provider about her rash. I recommend that you not bring up your sexual indiscretion, which undoubtly has nothing to do with it.
Best wishes-- HHH, MD