The prevalence of prostatitis among men is quite high, which is associated with a sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, a large number of dangers present in the life of a modern person. According to doctors, the treatment of the disease should be started as early as possible. To do this, every representative of the stronger sex should know what are the first signs of prostatitis in men. What symptoms accompany the different forms of the disease, what the exacerbation looks like, acute and chronic process and a little about the treatment, will be discussed in the article.
Main information
Signs and symptoms of prostatitis, as well as its treatment, are quite diverse, which is associated with the presence of several types of disease. First of all, prostatitis in men is:
- Spicy. It is often purulent in nature. Signs of inflammation in men, both general and specific, are maximally expressed, and the causative agent is pathogenic (pathogenic) flora. Therefore, the treatment for men in most situations is to prescribe antibiotics.
- Chronic. This can be the result of an acute process, if the treatment of a man is carried out incorrectly or untimely. Bright symptoms accompanying the purulent process disappear, the symptoms are much less pronounced. In remission, the characteristic signs of the process may disappear completely. With an exacerbation of chronic prostatitis, the symptoms increase, but more often with less intensity than with acute inflammation.
Chronic prostatitis in men can initially form without previous signs of acute inflammation. In this case, prostatitis often has a stagnant character, i. e. resulting from a man's sedentary lifestyle, the presence of chronic diseases that affect the speed of blood circulation in the pelvic organs.
It is very important to know and be able to understand the first signs and symptoms of prostatitis, because this will affect what treatment of the disease will be required in the future. If in the case of bacterial prostatitis, which will be more indicated by general toxic symptoms, the treatment must necessarily include antibiotic therapy (it does not matter whether it will be tablets or injections with antibacterial drugs), then in the case of a stagnant process, the treatment of stagnant phenomenacomes first, i. e. lifestyle change and treatment of co-morbidities.
Photo enlarged with prostatitis of the prostate:
- Violation of the function of the urinary system. Otherwise, this group of symptoms is called "dysuric disorders". This should also include symptoms indicating the development of an inflammatory process in the prostate.
- Sexual disorders characteristic of prostatitis.
- Changes in the nervous system due to the underlying process. characteristic of the disease.
More details about each group of signs of prostatitis will be discussed below.
specific expression
The leading and often first sign of prostate inflammation is pain. Pain can be of a different nature. The nature of the pain can vary greatly. There are piercing, aching, cutting pains with characteristic localization. If this is an acute process, then they can significantly affect men's lives, lead to disruption of sleep and work capacity. In chronic prostatitis during remission, the symptoms are mild, if not completely absent.
A typical localization of pain in prostatitis is the pelvic area. A person may feel pain in the perineum, lower abdomen, lower back. Often they give to the penis, scrotum, testicles. Pain may accompany urination and defecation, and also increase during erection and ejaculation. A characteristic first sign of calculous prostatitis can be pain, the intensity and time of occurrence of which depend on movement. They appear or intensify if a person walks quickly, jumps, bends. A similar symptom is due to mechanical irritation of the canal walls with stones.
No less frequent signs of prostatitis are various disorders of the urination process. Dysuria is manifested by the need to urinate frequently, a feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder, false desire to urinate. The very nature of urination can also change: the man complains of a slow or intermittent stream of urine, the need to make efforts to urinate normally. A terrible, although not the first, sign of prostatitis is acute urinary retention. The symptom develops with acute inflammation, accompanied by strong swelling of the prostate gland.
Urinary retention occurs when prostatitis is combined with an adenoma. With exacerbation of chronic prostatitis in men, an acute condition may also occur, but urinary retention is less intense and the condition is less frequent. More often, a person simply cannot hold a large amount of urine and needs frequent visits to the toilet.
Dysuria and pain are the most common first signs of any form of prostatitis. They are most often the first and predominate in the clinic of acute or exacerbation chronic prostatitis.
Uncomfortably for most men, although rarely the first sign of prostatitis is sexual dysfunction. Violations of the intimate sphere are more often a manifestation of a chronic inflammatory process and are of a different nature, therefore the approach to treatment is also different. First of all, there are problems with erection. She may become lethargic or the man may not be able to fully complete intercourse. Ejaculation is disturbed: premature ejaculation is more common. Over time, the usual sharpness of sensations is erased. The problem goes from purely physiological to psychological. Violations of sexual desire (libido) develop, problems with orgasm arise. These signs negatively affect the general state of the nervous system, provoking low mood, depression and sleep disorders. One ceases to feel one's own usefulness.
Constantly being under stress and burdened by one's own condition can provoke aggressive behavior, irritability and tendency to conflicts in a number of men. In such a clinical situation, sometimes only the treatment of prostatitis does not lead to normalization of the mental sphere. A representative of the stronger sex may need an experienced psychologist and even pills from the group of antidepressants, which must be taken even after the treatment of the main disease is over.
Along with the disorders of the sexual sphere, there is a change in the sperm. For example, purulent prostatitis will be accompanied by a change in the color, smell of seminal fluid. Depending on the pathogen that caused the process, the biological fluid can become yellow, green, yellow-green. Sometimes there is discharge from the opening of the urethra and outside intercourse. They also differ in color, smell and other characteristics, although mucous, transparent secretions that appear in the morning are more common. The person himself can detect pathological impurities in the urine after urination. We are talking about the appearance of mucous threads, also more often in the morning urine. Various pathological impurities in a number of situations remain the first and only manifestation of the inflammatory process.
The only sign of chronic slow prostatitis may be infertility. Often, already during the examination of a man for the impossibility of conceiving a child, a representative of the stronger sex reveals an old inflammatory process that has led to the disruption of the process of normal sperm formation. During the study, a decrease in the number of full-fledged spermatozoa was detected in men, as well as a decrease in the motility of the male germ cells.
Impurities in the semen may have a bloody character, which is a sign of calculous prostatitis. The condition is called erythrospermia. The symptom is due to traumatization of the walls by stones and is transient. Since the first signs of prostatitis are rare, therefore, when an impurity of blood appears in the semen, all other diseases that cause a similar symptom should always be excluded.
Common manifestations
General signs of prostatitis often mean general inflammatory reactions, which indicates the development of an acute inflammatory process in the body. Naturally, in case of chronic prostatitis, these manifestations are not expressed, only if we are not talking about a pronounced exacerbation. Signs of an active inflammatory process are:
- Increased body temperature. The degree of increase correlates with inflammation activity. In acute bacterial prostatitis, especially accompanied by abscess formation, the temperature can reach 39-40 degrees. This condition is accompanied by other pronounced symptoms of the disease. Fever can also be the first sign of viral prostatitis.
- General weakness, headache.
- Shivering. Shivering chills are characteristic of bacterial prostatitis.
- Muscle pain.
General signs of inflammation are rarely the only sign of prostatitis, but there are exceptions. The chronic slow form of the disease with a low severity of specific symptoms sometimes leads to a long search for the cause of the subfebrile state (temperature rise to 37. 2-37. 3 degrees), which is actually prostatitis. The diagnosis of the disease in such a situation is established after an examination and additional research, including seeding of the prostate secretion for the presence of pathogenic microorganisms in it.
The dependence of the clinic on the stage and type of the disease
It was already said above about the dependence of the clinical picture on the type of prostatitis and the stage of the course of the disease. Let's touch on each of them in more detail.
The first stage of the process is characterized by a predominance of general symptoms of inflammation over changes in the sexual sphere. The main signs of the disease will be pain, intoxication, dysuric disorders (mainly spasms, pain during urination). In some of the representatives of the stronger sex, changes in sperm and urine, as well as secretion from the penis, appear. If at this stage the man does not receive adequate treatment, the signs disappear and the prostatitis passes into the next stage.
The inflammatory process without appropriate treatment rarely ends with a complete recovery of the organ. Generally, the result of the disease will be the formation of fibrous or connective tissue that replaces the normal tissues of the prostate gland. For a visible improvement in the general condition, a person may not notice the worsening of dysuric disorders. A person needs to go to the toilet more often "little by little", sexual changes gradually increase, but the symptoms are not expressed.
In the absence of the necessary attention to the manifestations and signs of the still existing inflammatory process, prostatitis moves to the next stage. In fact, it is a chronic process, the clinic of which is characterized by alternating remission and exacerbation processes. The first signs of chronification may be absent, since the disease does not always proceed actively. However, progression leads to the formation of coarse fibrous scars in the prostate tissues, which will cause the main signs of the condition.
In the first place among the symptoms are dysuric symptoms, manifested in the form of a slow stream of urine, a frequent need to urinate, a feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder. A violation of the sexual sphere is added: problems with erection, premature ejaculation, inability to have full-fledged sexual contact.
Some forms of prostatitis also have their own characteristics of course. It has already been said about the acute and chronic stages of the bacterial process. What are the signs of congestive prostatitis will be listed below:
- Long-term pain syndrome (up to 3-6 months) with low intensity. The pain is limited.
- There are no inflammatory changes in the secretion of the prostate and urine.
- When interviewing a man, it may turn out that he has factors predisposing to the development of blood stasis in the small pelvis.
- In the clinical picture, as the first symptoms of the disease, disorders of the sexual sphere and dysuric phenomena are revealed.
Asymptomatic prostatitis also has features. Naturally, the process has no clinical picture. The disease is suspected after detecting changes in the general analysis of urine. After the examination, it becomes possible to make an accurate diagnosis and prescribe treatment.
Whatever form of prostatitis is detected in a man, the process at any stage can lead to the development of serious complications. They can be inflammatory processes of any organ of the excretory system (kidneys, bladder), which in turn will lead to the appearance of urolithiasis or even to the development of chronic kidney failure. Therefore, to prevent serious complications, it is necessary to treat prostatitis in time, and for timely treatment, of course, you must be able to recognize the first signs of the disease and contact a specialist in time.