It works for me

Your site has been very helpful in my understanding of prostatitis, so I would like to add my experience to the site so that it may help others.
 
I was diagnosed with prostatitis about five and a half years ago.  It was shortly after my wife and I had our first baby.  I remember feeling pain in my scrotum and genital area, enough that it would keep me awake at night.  I went to my family physician and was checked out - they could not find anything.  Urine analysis turned up nothing, and blood work was negative as well.  I was, at the time, a relatively healthy 37 year old.  My family doctor suggested I see a urologist, so I set up an appointment with a local one.  The pain continued.
 
Urologist was helpful, letting me know about prostatitis, that he sees many men my age with this problem.  Ran more tests, always turned up nothing.  Ultrasound of scrotum was fine.  Semen culture was negative. A course of antibiotics (Cipro, as I recall) made me feel a bit better, but after I finished the prescription, the pain would return.  The urologist recommended all the standard stuff - warm baths, massage, a quercitin (sp?) supplement.  When the pain would flare up more than usual, I would go get a new prescription - sometimes it would be cipro, sometimes we would try levaquin.  Sometimes azithromycin.  I got to know the various types of antibiotics well.  For each one when I would start them they would help, but when finished, the pain would return.  I would take four weeks of the drugs sometimes (if the side effects were minimum).  If the side effects were too unpleasant, I would stop taking them.  Levaquin was like that - the drug would really make my tendons very sore, especially in my arms.
 
This went on for years.  The pain would come and go.  My family doctor was very understanding - he would help with prescriptions, so I didn't have to pay the "specialist fee" my health plan charged to go to the urologist.  Every time I thought I had it "beat", it would come back with a vengeance.  Of course, I realized I never would "beat" prostatitis - the urologist told me I would have it for life, and would have to manage it the best I could.  One pharmacist, who asked if I was filling such a big antibiotic prescription because of prostatitis (as he had it as well), told me that if I live long enough, the prostatitis will eventually cause prostate cancer.  Thanks for the counter-side manner, buddy.
 
Well, what really bothered me was that all the tests never showed what was causing this problem.  No bacteria were ever present.  It didn't hurt to urinate or ejactulate - it just would be a dull pain in my scrotum area.  According to the urologist, that was normal.  Nothing showed up in the tests.  That never sat well with me.  I used to think it had something to do with having sex with my wife.  Sometimes a flare up would occur after sex - but my doctor (Urologist) assured me that was just coincidental.
 
I started to compile charts which would show what medicines worked best against which bacteria.  Even though none of the bacteria showed up in my tests, I figured that since I generally felt a bit better when taking antibiotics, that may mean that the antibiotics must be killing off something inside me.
 
After a recent painful flare up, I decided to try something a bit different.  I thought I would try multiple types of antibiotics either at once or in quick succession.  I didn't discuss this with my doctor, but I did check online for any potential problems/drug interactions.  I took a three week course of Levaquin (500mg a day), followed by a three day course of Cipro (500 mg twice a day), followed by 1g of Azithromycin.  Total days on antibiotics - 25, with the azithromycin probably taking a few days to get out of my system.
 
Ok, I know you are probably thinking this is a bit extreme.  But you also may be thinking like me - try it, see what happens.  You are totally fed up with the pain and not knowing what else to do.  Taking a lot of antibiotics like that will certainly cause some gastro-intestinal issues and other issues, like the aforementioned tendonitis from so much Levaquin.  It's no picnic.
 
But I'll be damned - I've been symptom free for over two months now. This is easily the longest I've ever gone without a twitch or pain.  I used to sit at my desk at work and feel the pain bad enough where I would have to get up a walk around every once in a while.  And at night, on particulary bad nights, I would not get any sleep at all.  What a tremendous difference I have experienced.  I don't know if it was the combination of medications but it certainly seems that way to me.  Has anyone else tried something like this?
 
Well, if this helps someone, that's great.  Or, you may think I'm crazy for doing this.  But I do know what I feel, and damn it, I FEEL GREAT for the first time in a long time.
 
Best of luck to you.
C-Man

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and encourage and support research to find the cause and a cure for prostatitis.

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