What is S.O.S.?

The Society Of Syphilitics (S.O.S.) is dedicated to those of us who may have syphilis. If you have been diagnosed with syphilis, or have tested positive for syphilis, or have been treated for syphilis (successfully or possibly unsuccessfully), or if you suspect that you have syphilis but your test results are negative (even repeatedly) then you need to find out more this disease.

Much of what people know about syphilis is wrong. Syphilis is often hard to detect and symptoms are not always obvious. Standard syphilis tests can be unreliable, and negative test results do not mean for certain that you don't have syphilis. What's more, syphilis is not always easily cured — especially if the disease is not treated soon after you first catch it. Even standard penicillin treatments for primary syphilis can sometimes be inadequate. Your symptoms may disappear and your follow-up tests may suggest that you are no longer infected, but then syphilis can sometimes resurface many years later.

Not everyone suffers the same consequences from living with undetected syphilis. Syphilis cases can vary wildly, often they are as different as the people who have it. For some, late-stage syphilis can make you go blind or deaf, become crazy or temporarily partly paralyzed — and eventually die. For others, syphilis may only cause you a lifetime of mysterious chronic health problems. Syphilis breaks some of the rules all of the time. It can often look just like any one of a variety of other illnesses. For this reason, syphilis has been dubbed "The Great Pretender." The S.O.S. aims to help us better understand the vast range of effects of living with syphilis (and of syphilis treatments), so that we may learn ways to possibly survive them.

• The Story of Patient X: One man's journey through the medical system to discover that he is a victim of syphilis
• Clinical Photos of Patient X — Photos by Dr. Harvey Lui, Head of Dermatology, University of British Columbia (November 18, 2004)

Recognizing Syphilis
(Treponema pallidum)

Primary Syphilis

Most often found on genitals, a primary syphilis lesion (painless ulcer) can occur anywhere you have been touched by a moist syphilis sore. Typically, only one lesion will erupt, within 10-90 days after contact. Skin on the surface of the lesion dies back and scabs, resulting in a well-rounded chancre with a hard base. Primary lesions are usually painless and often accompanied with swollen, but not tender, lymph glands. Symptoms clear up in a few weeks. If untreated, you remain infected, and eventually you have a secondary syphilis outbreak. Syphilis is usually treated with penicillin.

Secondary Syphilis

Secondary syphilis typically shows itself with a general rash that starts on your trunk and torso, and eventually spreads to your palms and the soles of your feet. Called the ̉great mimicÓ (because its many possible symptoms look like those of other diseases) syphilis too often gets misdiagnosed. This psoriaform rash on the back of the head and neck is from secondary syphilis.

REFERENCE: Self-Learning Module on Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Public Health Agency of Canada (Web: www.phac.aspc.gc.ca/slm-maa)
PHOTOS: Boehringer-Ingelheim

Syphilis Resources

• Déja Vu: AIDS in historical perspective — on IDEAS, CBC Radio, January 9 & 10, 1996. (outside link)
  "A mysterious epidemic, hitherto unknown, which had struck terror into all hearts by the rapidity of its spread, the ravages it made, and the apparent helplessness of the physicians to cure it." A quote about AIDS? No. It's about the appearance of syphilis in the early sixteenth century. Writer Colman Jones finds the two diseases share issues, from science and public health to civil liberties and sexuality…
• Lest We Forget: Syphilis in the AIDS era — Produced by Colman Jones. (outside link)
  Edited 1-hour summary of award-winning TV series, "The Cause of AIDS: Fact and Speculation." (Watch with Real Player.)
• Syphilis cases from HIV/AIDS clinic: The great pretender comes to Ward 86 — Slide presentation by Mark Jacobson, MD, December 7, 2005. (outside link)