Rachel E. Gross

For some, the world suddenly goes blurry. Others describe it as having a dust storm in your eyes, or being shaken up in a snow globe. People might see flashing lights or black spots drifting through their field of vision, or acquire a sudden sensitivity to light, worse than walking into the sunlight after having your eyes dilated. If patients aren’t treated, some will inevitably go blind.
Many medical providers never suspect the culprit: syphilis.

After a decade working as an obstetrician-gynecologist, Marci Bowers thought she understood menopause. Whenever she saw a patient in her 40s or 50s, she knew to ask about things such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, mood swings, and memory problems. And no matter what a patient’s concern was, Bowers almost always ended up prescribing the same thing. “Our answer was always estrogen,” she told me.
Then, in the mid-2000s, Bowers took over a gender-affirmation surgical practice in Colorado.

After she turned 42, Teesha Karr thought she was done having kids. Six, in her mind, was perfect. And besides, she was pretty sure she had started menopause. For the past six months she’d had all the same signs as her friends: hot flashes, mood swings, tender breasts. She and her husband decided they could probably safely do away with contraception.