All in your head? Better get tested for anaerobic bacteria

Ever since an insufficiently treated acute urethral infection roughly 11 years ago (windsurfing...), I have been suffering from constant pain in my prostate, painful ejaculation, sometimes whitish discharges while urinating, a general feeling of illness and fatigue.

Throughout those 11 years, I was being told time and again by several doctors that it was all in my head, that I should simply stop thinking about it etc. At some point, I had actually come to consider that a possibility. Until a few weeks ago, when after several weeks of experiencing a slight pain in my testicles while voiding and having painfully swollen lymph nodes, I went to see a urologist for what I believed to be a bladder infection or epididymitis - When I mentioned suffering from chronic prostatitis as well, that urologist fortunately suggested testing for anaerobic bacteria. At that point, after countless tests yielding no results, I did not seriously expect her to find anything. And yet - she did. "Urethral urine" (what comes out first) was negative. So was "bladder urine". But after a (fairly unpleasant)transrectal prostate massage, another urine test finally showed the presence of anaerobic bacteria. That fact is important - because I clearly did not have a "new" acute prostate infection, for in that case a urethral infection should have been present as well, showing in all urine probes, which obviously is not the case. Need I say I wish somebody had done that eleven years ago?

The bottom line is: No matter how many tests do not yield anything, keep doing them, especially when symptoms are strong, and ask your doctor to screen for anaerobiae as well. And if you just know you're suffering from prostatitis and they tell you it's all in your head, changing your doctor may be a better idea than changing your mind

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