Prostatitis
Prostatitis is an inflammation of the prostate, with various origins and seriousness.
Acute prostatitis can involve high fever, perineal pain, frequent, painful, and difficult urination. Alternatively it can be chronic, with symptoms that can be rare or hardly significant and disorders that can be persistent or recurrent and of various kinds: diffuse slight pain in the urethra, difficulty in urinating, a feeling of perineal weight, and irritation of the testicles, etc.
Intermediate situations between acute and chronic conditions also exist.
Prostatitis has multiple causes and they are not always easy to identify. Very often, germs have come up the urinary channel, or have come down from the bladder, and they can reach the prostate and cause an inflammation. Since the tubules of the prostate gland resemble bunches of grapes that have grown in the urethra, one can easily see how these discharges of prostatic secretions could become an entrance pathway for germs into the prostate. Furthermore, since these groups of glands are covered in hard and fibrous muscular tissue, in the case of inflammation, they tend to be strangled and to change because of the “swelling” associated with inflammation. In this way it is possible for secretions and bacteria to pool, and not to find an outlet: in this way acute prostatitis tends to last over time and become chronic.
Diagnosis
It is important to consult an urologist as soon as the first disorders manifest, and especially burning urination, or an increased urinary frequency. Caring for prostatitis in its early stages is easier compared with once it has already become chronic. It can thus be very important to turn to a physician in order to rapidly apply the appropriate diagnostic procedures.
The urologist may discover prostatitis in the patient’s history, from laboratory examinations, from ultrasound scan imagery, from the outcome of a biopsy and from rectal examination.
This diagnosis can sometimes be difficult; in certain cases, however, it can be a pleasant surprise when certain cases of prostatitis simulate prostate cancer.
Therapy
Prostatitis is treated using antibiotic medicines, anti-inflammatories, and a healthy lifestyle and dietary rules.
Experience shows that often, satisfactory results can be obtained even after years of neglect. It happens though, at other times, that only after a few weeks of disorder it is no longer possible to obtain a complete cure.
Sexual Relations with Prostatitis
At the acute stage, it will be difficult to have sexual relations that are satisfactory or trouble free, but at the chronic stages nothing stands in the way of regular activity. During relations account must be taken of the fact that there can often be phenomena of erectile dysfunction and ejaculatory disorders, which are often premature compared with the patient’s normal state. Sometimes ejaculation can be painful or troublesome. These facts should not necessarily preclude relations. Prolonged abstinence should be advised against outright, as should the “genitalisation” of awareness (always thinking of the trouble in the testicles, touching the perineum, worrying about the slightest minute burning, and despairing about not “technically perfect” sexual relations).
Can Prostatitis Come Back?
It is possible: the “grape-like” shape of the prostate gland favours both the condition becoming chronic and the return of inflammation after it has been defeated. At the chronic stage it will be enough to maintain an uncomfortable or forced seated position for too many hours on the run (like in a car on a long journey) to block the pelvic passages, and foster the return of inflammation and weakening the gland.
