Transmitting Syphillis - Closed Mouth Kiss

[questionguy520]

I had an encounter (received oral) on August 31 of this year. Two days later I had a pain in the back of my testicles and went to see urgent care. They stated I may have Chlamydia/Gonorrhea and gave me a shot of Rocephin intramuscularly. My tests all came back clear, with the exception of a 1:2 titre on syphilis with a confirmatory test result. This blood test was taken before my shot. I was also given 500 mg of Azithromycin and 200mg a day of Doxycycline for 14 days. I went to a doctor after 7 days on the doxycycline and he took me off the doxy and gave me two shots of penicillin. My blood tests 14 days post exposure (after rocephin,azithro,doxy, but before penicillin) showed a 1:2 titre but no confirmation on the follow up test. I had a test a week later at the health clinic that showed no RPR or confirmation. I have a follow up with an internal medicine doctor on Tuesday to wrap all this up and I feel confident the infection is gone. I just have one question:

I pecked (closed mouth, very little if any saliva) a girl about a week after the Rocephin shot during my Doxy treatment. I spoke with her yesterday and she said she is having syptoms of Strep throat (swollen glands in neck, etc). Did I cause this? Would the Rocephin shot have made me non-contagious or do I need to have her follow-up to make sure I did not spread this?

I believe if I received oral and did not have a chancre, the chance of me having a chancre on/in my mouth would be fairly non existent, correct?

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Yes, the ceftriaxone (Rocephin) would make you non-infectious.  I would not worry about transmission to others after that. EWH

[questionguy520]

Thank you Dr. Hook, you sir are a life saver! Do you think the shot of Rocephin would be enough to make me at least non-contagious? That was the first course of action and I just want to make sure that no one else would be affected.

Thanks for all you do!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome back to the Forum.   I'll go straight to your questions.  Chancres occur only at sites of direct sexual contact and, even more importantly following the antibiotics you took you would not be infectious for others in any way. Thus I would not worry at all that you might have transmitted your infection to anyone else through a kiss.

By the way, it does take a while for syphilis blood tests to respond to therapy.  thus while you should be comfortable that the treatment you have described is more than adequate for syphilis treatment, while it may occur earlier, your blood test my not change  until 3 or even 6 months after therapy.  EWH