PROSTATITIS

This is the most-neglected male disease in the U.S. It strikes more men than either prostate cancer or prostate enlargement. It can be one of the most miserable diseases inflicted on men. It strikes them at younger ages. It lasts longer.

John Garst, Athens, Georgia, wrote us five years ago how he got sick with prostatitis at age 33, still had it at age 63. He had seen a doctor on average eight times a year for 30 years�including times contemplating the release of suicide.

Garst estimates that the disease has cost him more than $270,000.

Urologists estimate that one in every four men who see a doctor about a problem involving the penis, urethra, testicles, prostate, bladder, or kidneys is suffering from one of three types of this disease.

But prostataitis is not a threat to life, and for all practical purposes research of prostatitis does not exist.

If you read the rest of this excerpt from our Special Report on Prostatitis you will know more about it than 98% of the American public!

SYMPTOMS

These mimic the symptoms of prostate growth, such as:

  Frequent urge to urinate
  Difficult start, dribbling
  Nighttime trips to the bathroom

The symptom that sets prostatitis apart from prostate growth is pain. This varies from mild to so severe it renders a man helpless. Indeed, some people refer to a man in severe prostatitis pain as a "prostate cripple."

DIAGNOSIS: ACUTE PROSTATITIS

A man with the symptoms just listed, plus fever and chills, usually has acute prostatitis caused by an infection and needs immediate medical care. Prompt treatment with antibiotics, rest, and plenty of liquids can bring dramatic relief. Antibiotics should always -repeat, always - be taken for a minimum of six weeks.

DIAGNOSIS: CHRONIC PROSTATITIS

Men with symptoms other than those of acute prostatitis are normally given the standard exam consisting of a DRE and the "four glass test." In the four glass test, a man expels about an ounce of urine in a sterile glass. The second glass gets another ounce of urine, this direct from the bladder. The third glass gets fluid produced by pressing the prostate hard enough to force fluid into the urethra (urination tube). After completing the first three parts of the exam, the man empties urine into glass no. 4.

All four specimens are examined for white blood cells and bacteria. When bacteria are present, the diagnosis is chronic prostatitis followed by antibiotics. Hytrin or Valium and medicines that reduce muscle spasms have been coupled with antibiotics successfully.

DIAGNOSIS: NON-BACTERIAL (NON-INFECTIOUS) PROSTATITIS

In the presence of prostatitis symptoms coupled with white blood cells found in prostate fluid, but no finding of bacteria, the verdict is usually "non-bacterial (non-infectious) prostatitis.

Doctors literally hate this verdict because there is no known way to treat it successfully. One problem: the potential source of infection numbers about 2,000 types of bacteria. But today's exams test for only a half-dozen to maybe a dozen of the best known germs.

The end result is that doctors usually prescribe an antibiotic because they don't know of anything else to do. Sometimes the man is lucky and the treatment works. Most of the time it doesn't and his problem is to live with it.

Suggestions, which have helped others: When on antibiotics, discharge the prostate fluid sexually two to three times a week. Sometimes hot water or hot whirlpool baths lasting about 20 minutes bring at least temporary relief.