Acupuncture for prostatitis?
Does acupuncture help the relief of pain of chronic prostatitis? Here is the answer.
Prostatitis is an infection or inflammation of the prostate. This condition cause painful sensation in the groin, genitals, or lower back also causing urgency to urinating.
How doctors diagnose the chronic prostatitis?
To be considered as prostatitis, the pain, or unpleasant pressure in the pelvic area, must last for at least three months. Another symptom associated to chronic prostatitis is pain during or after sex, but also frequency or urgency in urination.
How intense is the pain caused by prostatitis?
It varies from person to person. The pain can be mild and sometimes very debilitating.
Usually, the pain is felt in the area between the genital and the anus, testicles, penis, lower abdominal area and the lower back. The pain may come and go or be more intense in some days than others.
What are the causes and treatment of prostatitis?
Prostatitis is not so easy to treat because there is not only one form or cause of prostatitis. In most cases the cause is unknown. In case of bacterial prostatitis, it is common the surge of a sudden and continuous pain which may last several days or weeks.
A common type of prostatitis is the chronic prostatitis. Chronic prostatitis are either from bacteria infection or from unknown nonbacterial source which accounts for about 95% of the cases. Most specialists admit that nonbacterial prostatitis are a pelvic muscle spasm. There is also a theory that prostatitis is an immune system dysfunction where the immune system mistakenly attacks the prostate tissue causing the inflammation.
Stress or emotional problems, or even food or drinks like coffee can trigger this form of nonbacterial prostatitis. There are however other causes including infrequent sex, infection in the urinary system or even trauma in the perineum due to for instance riding a bike.
Another medical condition sometimes mistaken for prostatitis is prostatic stones. The stones are of calcified secretions of the prostate. These stones can cause pain and sometimes infection of the prostate. Their negative effect is usually magnified when benign prostatic hypertrophy exists. Benign prostatic hypertrophy is the abnormal growth of the prostate as man age. Do not mistake prostatic stones by kidney stones. Prostatic stones may cause obstruction of the ducts of the prostate as they do not pass out like kidney stones.
Kidney stones are created from metabolic problems nevertheless not easy to find. Kidney stones can stay in the kidneys without causing any symptom until they try to pass causing obstruction of the urine flow or infection.
Prostatic stones however are somehow different. Prostatic stones do not pass the same as kidney stones. Prostatic stones can be surgically removed, but in most cases they are asymptomatic. Prostatic stones can cause infection and inflammation of the prostate. The infection is treatable but without the removal of the stones the inflammatory process may become recurrent causing a chronic condition.
Because of the complexity of the causes of prostatitis doctors may prescribe several different treatments not always successful. Alternative medicine like acupuncture may help in some cases.
Based on recent research published in The American Journal of Medicine patients treated with acupuncture have responded positively with relief of pain or even resolving the issue leading the conclusion that if conventional medical treatment does not work, it may very well worth a trial of acupuncture to treat the chronic prostatitis.
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