What is prostatitis and how to treat it?

The male reproductive organs are relatively simple, but they are prone to problems. For example, prostatitis is the most common physical disease among men. Many men do not understand the prostate in the early stages of the disease, which delays the treatment. Therefore, in order to make men better understand this disease, let’s take a look at what prostatitis is and how to treat it.

1. Definition: Prostatitis is a common disease in urology, and ranks first among male patients under 50 years old in urology. In 1995, NIH developed a new classification method for prostatitis: Type I: equivalent to acute bacterial prostatitis in the traditional classification method, Type II: equivalent to chronic bacterial prostatitis in the traditional classification method, Type III: chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, Type IV: asymptomatic prostatitis. Among them, nonbacterial prostatitis is far more common than bacterial prostatitis.

2. Clinical manifestations: fever, fatigue and other systemic symptoms, accompanied by perineal and suprapubic pain, and even acute urinary retention. Most of them have pain and abnormal urination. Regardless of the type of chronic prostatitis, similar clinical symptoms can be manifested, collectively referred to as prostatitis syndrome, including pelvic and sacral pain, abnormal urination and sexual dysfunction. Pelvic and sacral pain is extremely complex. The pain is generally located in the suprapubic area, lumbar sacral area and perineum. Radiating pain can be manifested as pain in the urethra, spermatic cord, testicles, groin, and inner side of the abdomen. It radiates to the abdomen and resembles acute abdominal pain. It radiates along the urinary tract and resembles angina, which often leads to misdiagnosis. Abnormal urination is manifested by frequent urination, urgent urination, painful urination, difficult urination, bifurcated urine stream, dripping after urination, increased frequency of nocturia, milky white discharge from the urethra after urination or during bowel movements, etc. Occasionally, sexual dysfunction occurs, including loss of libido, premature ejaculation, painful ejaculation, weak erection, and impotence.

3. Treatment: First of all, clinical evaluation should be conducted to determine the type of disease and select treatment methods according to the cause. Misunderstanding of the disease, unnecessary anxiety and excessive abstinence will aggravate the symptoms. Prostatitis may be a disease with mild or no symptoms, a self-limiting disease that can be relieved on its own, or a disease with complex symptoms that leads to urinary tract infection, sexual dysfunction, infertility, etc. The treatment of patients should avoid over-exaggerating the harmfulness of the disease to patients, and avoid taking a simple, negative, and blindly focused attitude towards antibiotic treatment. Individualized comprehensive treatment should be adopted.