Prostatitis features the inflammation of the prostate gland. Although it’s most common in young patients with an active sexual life, men of all ages can develop this condition. Prostatitis is pretty common, but it typically doesn’t cause severe symptoms. Yet, it’s still important to seek medical treatment because otherwise, it can become an annoying and difficult problem. When acute bacterial prostatitis turns chronic, the symptoms keep returning, and patients severely reduce their quality of life.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at prostatitis treatment, including what patients need to know about this condition. We will break down prostatitis treatment into the four main types of prostatitis. They are:
- Acute bacterial prostatitis: It is a type of prostatitis with a sudden onset that usually features more severe symptoms than the rest but is easier to detect and treat.
- Chronic bacterial prostatitis: These patients are apparently cured of prostatitis, but the disease returns after a few weeks. In some cases, they have mild or moderate symptoms that stay continuously and uninterrupted for an extended period.
- Chronic pelvic pain syndrome: This type of prostatitis is the most difficult to treat because there is no consensus about the cause. This type of prostatitis remains for a very long and causes the worse type of alteration in the quality of life.
- Asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis: As the name implies, this type of prostatitis remains asymptomatic. Many patients are diagnosed by visualizing the prostate to treat other conditions. The question remains, do I need to treat this ailment or not?
In a previous article, he described details about each type of prostatitis, its symptoms, and more. You can go there if you want to learn about the condition itself. But now let’s start talking about the treatment options in each case and what home treatment strategies you have to relieve the pain.
1) Medical treatment for acute bacterial prostatitis
Most men with a severe case of acute bacterial prostatitis will have a fever and experience discomfort in the area around the prostate gland. In most cases of acute bacterial prostatitis, the cause is E. coli bacteria that enter the urinary tract from the digestive system. The urinary tract is a long tube that connects the bladder to the outside of the body. It is lined with cells that help keep the urine inside the body. The infection can occur when bacteria from the digestive tract move up into the urinary tract and get trapped there.
So, acute bacterial prostatitis is an acute infection of the prostate gland. Because this type of prostatitis is usually caused by a bacterial infection, medical treatment is generally an antibiotic course. Depending on the severity of symptoms, men may need to stay in the hospital for a few days.
Treatment usually includes wide-spectrum antibiotic therapy with penicillin or its derivatives. Third-generation cefalosporins can also do the trick, and most patients will be able to complete their treatment at home, with a few exceptions. When patients have signs of severe infection and sepsis, antibiotic treatment resistance, or fail to follow the treatment course, they can be hospitalized for better results. Another cause of hospitalization is urinary retention due to a swollen prostate gland.
The antibiotic course usually takes one or two weeks, but some patients can have a more extensive treatment for nearly a month.
Surgical treatment is also required in some cases, mainly when a prostate abscess is formed. Doctors need to drain the abscess contents to prevent spilling into the peritoneum, which would be a life-threatening complication.