Have you ever heard of prostatitis? If not, it will surprise you to know that this disease accounts for up to 25 percent of all doctor’s visits of men aged 25 and up for complaints about their genitals and urinary systems.

In a nutshell, prostatitis is any form of inflammation of the prostate gland. Obviously, since women do not have such a gland, the condition can only be found in men.

The first sign of prostatitis is pain in the prostate area as well as in the back and rectum area. You may have prostatitis if you urinate frequently or if you often wake up in the middle of the night just to take a piss. Another symptom may be pain during ejaculation as the prostate contracts during emission of semen.

There are four basic classifications of prostatitis: acute prostatitis (bacterial), chronic bacterial prostatitis, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, and asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis.

It is easy to diagnose acute prostatitis because its symptoms suggest infection. Symptoms include chills, fever, pain in the lower back and genital area, urinary frequency and urgency usually at night, a painful or burning sensation during urination, body aches and an infected urinary tract. Acute prostatitis is considered a medical emergency. Treatment is usually with antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin and doxycycline.

Chronic bacterial prostatitis is a urinary tract infection that recurs in men. In between these recurrences, bacteria is already present in the prostate although there are usually no symptoms. Doctors diagnose this type of prostatitis by culturing urine as well as prostate fluid that a doctor obtains by putting pressure on the prostate during a rectal exam. Therapy usually involves four to eight weeks of antibiotics that penetrate the prostate well.

Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is the most difficult one to diagnose and some doctors consider it “poorly understood.” Men of all ages can get this type of prostatitis, especially once they get to their 30s. Symptoms tend to appear and disappear for no reason and without warning. They may include mild discomfort to totally debilitating pain.It can be both inflammatory or non-inflammatory. Surprisingly, in its inflammatory form, there is no evidence of any infecting organism that can be found in urine, semen, and other fluids from the prostate. In its non-inflammatory form, there is virtually no evidence present, even of infection-fighting cells. One sign of this prostatitis is that men afflicted with it cannot sit for even a moderate amount of time due to the dysfunction of the pelvic floor muscles. In September 2003, it was discovered that “normal” men have slightly more bacteria in their semen than men with this kind of prostatitis.

In asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis, sufferers feel no pain or discomfort and the only notable sign is that there are white blood cells in the semen. This kind of prostatitis is often detected by doctors when checking for causes of infertility of when testing for prostate cancer.

Treatment for acute prostatitis usually comes in the form of antibiotics. In chronic baterical prostatitis, treatment is often through prolonged high-doses of antimicrobials, such as Ciprofloxacin. The general consensus is that antibiotics cure acute prostatitis infections in a short period of time. However, in the case of chronic bacterial prostatitis, treatment is usually longer and in repeatedly increasing doses, largely because there is often a structural abnormality that serves as a reservoir for the disease.

Chronic nonbacterial prostatitis is the most diagnosed type of prostatitis and is commonly treated through “the Stanford Protocol,” which was developed by Rodney Anderson, a Stanford Professor of Urology. The protocol combines medication with psychlogical therapy and physical therapy, including yoga-type exercises aimed at relaxing the muscles of the pelvis and abdomen.