Dr Wei Sheng Tan

Hi there Syphilis is commonly detected during routine health checkups and pre-employment tests in people who have latent syphilis ( a late stage of syphilis in which patients have no symptoms) based on a combination of at least 2 positive syphilis blood tests. This is usually the most common method in which it is diagnosed in people with latent syphilis. In earlier more infectious stages of syphilis, patients may present with painless ulcers at the genitals from which swabs may be taken to help confirm the diagnosis , or have a generalised body rash affecting the palms and soles.

Hi there Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), as you have mentioned, is a course of anti-HIV medication which is taken for 1 month after a high risk sexual exposure to HIV. This aims to prevent the HIV virus from infecting you after you have been exposed to it. PEP is normally given when the HIV exposure risk is assessed to be high ( e. g. there is a more than 1 in 10,000 chance that you might HIV from that single sexual encounter).

Hi Ruzaini From your photo, it appears that you do have some shallow box car (crater type) and ice pick scars on your cheek. For treatment of the box car scars, the fractional CO2 laser is a good choice. This creates micro-columns of heat injury in the skin to stimulate new collagen. As a result, the scars will gradually become shallower and less prominent. At least 3-5 sessions spaced 6 weeks apart are needed to see improvement, and there is downtime to be expected of at least 4-6 days with post treatment redness.