evening_ferry

Knowing the type is an advantage even when it is frightening. It is the information that lets them manage you appropriately rather than generically.

Mention whether you have had sex since treatment and whether your partner was treated, because reinfection is the other common explanation and the timeline you have would fit it.

Worth noting the types are usually different. The types that cause visible warts are generally not the ones screening programmes are looking for on a smear. So the two of you may well be carrying different things entirely.

Location plays a part too. Sores inside the vagina, in the rectum, or in the mouth are often never seen at all.

Do the topical treatment properly first before deciding it is impractical. Most reported failures turn out to be application problems rather than the product not working.

Repeat HIV testing after a few months is often suggested too, in case the exposure that gave you syphilis was recent enough to be inside the window for HIV.

The situations where it genuinely becomes relevant are pregnancy, immune suppression and anything involving surgery in the area. Outside those it is not a disclosure anyone is waiting for.

Do not skip treatment over this. There is a workable answer and stopping feeding permanently is not it.

Taking it with food is the usual first suggestion and it helps a lot of people. There is also advice about staying upright for a while afterwards and taking it with plenty of water, because the irritation can be partly in the oesophagus rather than the stomach.

Check with a pharmacist rather than me, but this is a well trodden problem with a standard answer.

Peer support was what worked for me, more than anything clinical. Talking to people who had been diagnosed years earlier did something that no amount of good news about viral load did.