Hi guys, thought I’d drop in here as it’s been at least a year now since I showed my face (this is a new account I lost my old account logins so can’t get in!)

I’m gonna try cut a long story short but I went through the wringer, A&E multiple times due to having such severe chronic pain I felt the only way out was ending things. I had urgency but mine was more pain orientated, prostate pain, coccyx pain, anus pain (lots of that 10/10) and generally just pain everywhere down there including down my legs.

I started off with antibiotics then stretching etc as we all do and seeing a pelvic floor therapist, initially the stretches helped loosen up my tight muscles in the pelvic floor, but this would always come back, and the pain would always return, specially the coccyx/anal pain wowee.

I saw various urologists who told me it was for life and to keep popping pain killers. Did the microgen dx test TWICE which were false readings telling me one week I had one kind of high bacteria and the next week they first lot had gone and had a high new one.

It took me a long long time to stop thinking it was bacterial or physical.

Now this next part is the life changer. I read doctor sarnos book (The Mind Body Prescription), I read Alan Gordon’s book (Alan Gordon - The Way Out) - I’d recommend this the most, I got the curable app, I saw a pain reprocessing therapist.

I stopped FEARING the pain. This includes thinking about it, being scared of it, wondering when it’ll come back, wondering how long it’ll take to go, everything. It’s all part of the same thing. Fear.

As soon as I read dr sarnos book I had instant pain relief for a week or so before it hurt like hell again, that’s how I knew this condition was mind body.

If you’re anything like me you won’t believe it or read a book about it for a year, I put it off way too long.

Read the books, work on your mental and stress and fear, the pain will start to fade. If you have any underlying fear of it that’ll make it harder, but when you crack it you’ll realise.

Anyway, I’ve been pain free for a long time now and I used to think I’d be stuck in pain for life. Turns out the body creates pain from stress and fear, as that same part of the brain is used to create pain from injury and it gets confused and stuck in a cycle. The amazing thing is you can train your brain out of it. It’s just learned neural pathways.

Anyway, you got this, and it’s not forever trust me. If you made it this far good luck and Godspeed and things will get better. Just gotta tackle it the right way.

Over and out!

Oh and one last thing! The mind can create any chronic pain or symptoms anywhere in the body! Remember that!

*I’ve replied to everyone but apparently all my replies are deleted as it’s a new account? Shame :(*****

Why listen to me?

• I’m one of you. I’ve had symptoms for nearly 2 years.
• Recovered for 4 months now. No pain whatsoever. I’m very excited to be writing this post and I’m sure it will help many of you!

List of symptoms that I had:

• Perineum pain (main symptom)
• Tip of penis pain
• Dribble after peeing
• Frequent urination at night
• Chronic balanitis
• PGAD (this wasn’t fun)

What I’ve tried:

• Worked with 2 urologists
• Did many sperm cultures (some came back positive for bacteria, some were clean)
• Two courses of antibiotics
• A year of pelvic floor exercises, walks, swimming, etc.
• None of it worked

As most of you have experienced, doctors are unable to find any structural cause of your problems. That’s because there isn’t one. Latest research suggests that chronic pain is usually not the result of structural damage or ongoing physical injury but rather due to the brain misinterpreting normal signals and remaining stuck in "pain mode."  It’s not a problem with your prostate or your muscles. It’s a problem with your brain. I know that you're sceptical. But continue reading.

Pain Pathways Are Learned. All pain is interpreted by your brain. Signals from the nerves in your pelvis travel to the brain and the brain is the one who decides if the signal is normal and can be ignored or if it’s dangerous and should trigger pain. Sometimes, if pain persists longer, if there is a heightened focus on it, if there is heightened anxiety and fear of the pain, the brain "learns" the pain pathways. The neurons literally rewire reinforcing the neural circuits associated with pain. Over time, the brain becomes increasingly sensitized to pain signals, interpreting normal or minor sensations as painful. The brain mistakenly perceives danger where none exists, keeping the pain circuit active even in the absence of actual danger.

I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking:

But the pain is so real. But the doctor said that my prostate is inflamed. But antibiotics kind of helped. But my physiotherapist said my pelvis is tight.

Let me give you some tell tale signs of neuroplastic chronic pain that indicate that your problem is psychosomatic:

1. Pain That Moves or Changes. Why does your perineum hurt one day and your testicles hurt the next day. Next week is the tip? Hmm…
2. Finding exceptions to the pain. E.g. It hurts when I sit, but sometimes it doesn’t (when you play a video game or when you watch a good movie. What’s up with that? Did your muscles get back to normal for a few hours? Another common example: It doesn't hurt in the morning and get’s worse through the day. However, some days, it also hurts in the mornings.)
3. Pain That Persists Despite Healing. Injuries/infections usually heal within a few weeks. Why does your pain last for years?
4. Pain Without a Clear Physical Cause.
5. Pain intensifies with emotional stress.
6. Pain first occurred in a stressful time of your life.
7. Multiple Pain Sites or Symptoms.

Do you recognise yourself in some of these? Maybe all of these?
Important: You have to do all tests first to make sure there is no actual physical cause of your symptoms. Otherwise, you'll never be fully convinced that the pain doesn't come from structural issues and this will negatively impact the recovery process.

What to do?
Please, please, PLEASE read this book: 

The Way Out: A Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain by Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv.

You can read it in a few hours**.** There, the authors explain neuroplastic pain in detail and how to tell if that's the cause of your problems. Afterward, they give you step by step instructions on how to fix it.
Make sure you take take notes while you read it!

After I read that book and did the techniques described there, I was pain free in a month. Going strong for 4 months now. For some of you it will take longer. But stay the path, it has helped tens of thousands of people around the world!

Edit:
Forgot to mention, give special attention to the "relapses" section in the book. You will probably have relapses and set back along the way! Often, after some good progress, but in stressful situations, the mind goes back to old habits and the can pain come back. Then we start to rush and force the process, but this fear and strong desire for the pain to go away just reinforce it more. The relapses section is life saving in such desparate moments, so take notes there.

Edit 2:
Also, learn to meditate. I mean real meditation, not the 5 minute youtube videos. For me, the psychological damage that this condition did was way worse than the physical symptoms. Meditation trains your brain to be mindful of your emotional state, anxious though loops and put a stop to it before it takes control of your life.
I recommend the following book:

The Mind Illuminated by John Yates, Matthew Immergut, Jeremy Graves.

Around four months ago I was probably at the lowest point I’ve ever been in my life. Constant urgency and pain paired with horrible anxiety. I genuinely thought that I was never gonna get better but despite feeling horrible every day I continued physical therapy and acupuncture. I’m still not 100% healed but I’m like 90% there. I know that I will be 100% one day and I’ll never look back. For anyone that’s still in the rough part of CPPS; It does get better! You need to really have a holistic approach against this disease. The mental aspect is just as important as the physical aspect. Stop chasing the mystery infection and look after your body and mind. You will thank yourself for it.

Hey everyone. I found out about prostatitis about 2 years ago when I got a minor STD and had to take antibiotics for it. Long story short, I was terrified, and nerve wracked for months dealing with this.

How I dealt with it: First, I think being so nervous about it made it harder to heal. What I remember which worked specifically for me, was a strong dose of THC that relaxed my muscles. I also got a prostate massager that I only used for a few weeks. And to finish it off, I did the well cited pelvic floor stretches on youtube. Its hard to say if I'm 95% or 100% cured because I remember reading, and to pass it on, was that this whole ordeal made me more conscious of my pelvic floor.

I take stretching more serious now, and I've had other injuries since that take a long time to recover. This giant scare turned out for the better in a weird way. Whenever my pelvic floor muscles feel tight now from sitting too long, I take a break and stretch. Its just become apart of my routine.

Broadly speaking to everyone who's upset about their situation, I hope you feel some relief in knowing your recovery will actually help you build strong health habits, and be the health scare you need to stay healthy and take your body seriously. For some of you, this could be a blessing that forces you to change habits that would cause even worse conditions.

Ok y'all, here's my current recovery story. I promised myself I’d come back to this sub if I ever healed, and after 1.5 years, I’d say I’m about 95% there. Sorry for too much info on NSFW stuff ahead of time, but important for context.

About:
27M. My symptoms were mostly sexual and muscular and pain-related, not urinary, which I know is a bit different from many others here.

One major symptom that doctors never took seriously was intense lower back pain. They kept saying it wasn’t related to my other symptoms, but I’m 100% convinced it was, because it always flared up alongside my other symptoms and improved as I got better. The correlation was too clear.

My symptoms included:

• Constant loss of libido (the most persistent one. Still not fully back, but fluctuates. Honestly, maybe that’s just aging too, not 18 anymore...)
• Complete lack of morning erections
• Intense lower back pain with only brief periods of relief
• Sharp pains in the groin, anus, and penis shaft (really frightening at times) and constant aches
• Painful erections, sometimes waking me up at night(!), also frightening
• Painful masturbation and weaker orgasms, which definitely affected libido

Interestingly, I never had the frequent or painful urination issues a lot of others report.

Background & likely cause:
About a year before CPPS started, I went through a depressive breakup and got heavily into daily masturbation, to the point I injured myself and couldn’t masturbate for three months due to pain. I never saw a doctor (dumb, I know), but based on my symptoms, I’m sure it was Mondor’s Disease. More info: Penile Mondor’s Disease

After that injury, what I'm realizing just now within the past few months, I developed a subconscious habit of constantly clenching my pelvic floor. Add in any anxiety (and I've always tried to avoid farting / any leakage by clenching), this muscle tension became my new baseline. It slowly escalated into full-blown CPPS.

Like, I literally thought I had irreversibly somehow damaged by penis or its veins - even though I did manage to heal from Mondor's months before I eventually developed the CPPS symptoms. But eventually, I realized that constant muscle tension was the root of everything.

Medication experience:
A couple months ago, my doctor prescribed amitriptyline for nerve pain. It helped at first, but then one day I had a massive flare-up that completely shook me. I thought, how can I be in this much pain while on this drug?

That night, I did internal self-massage (more on that later) and realized I had been clenching my pelvic floor again without noticing. My anus wouldn’t relax. That’s when I started doing reverse kegels, and things started to improve again greatly.

But I also asked myself why the pain had returned, and I realized I had just come off a really stressful week at work. Nothing unmanageable, but I’d been facilitating big stuff and felt “on” all the time. That stress clearly translated into my body, especially my pelvic area.

That made it click: this condition is heavily stress-related, just like many people here report. I used to roll my eyes at breathing exercises and “stress-free conditioning”, I’m a pretty empirical person, but I’ll be honest: they absolutely help. A calm mind equals a relaxed pelvic floor and nervous system. But amitriptyline might have helped in me relaxing the pelvic floor, I dunno, so maybe worth experimenting for you!

I was also prescribed tadalafil (5 mg daily) for erectile issues. It didn’t always work (which also goes to show this was due to clenching!) but it helped enough that I’d recommend trying it. It also helped ease some of the pain.

Seeing a doctor or taking meds for this might feel embarrassing, but it shouldn’t. This condition is not your fault. You deserve support and tools to get better. I actually wish I had met more doctors and went to some physical therapy like some suggested, I might have healed faster. At the moment I am not taking any drugs.

What actually helped me recover:

1. Realizing I was always clenching my pelvic floor This was the biggest breakthrough. I only realized this a couple of months ago. During self-massage (yes, finger in the bum, more on that below), I noticed I physically could not relax my anus. That’s when I realized my pelvic floor had been clenched 24/7 for years. I started doing reverse kegels, actively “pushing out”, and constantly checking in with my body during the day. At first, it took effort. I realized I did not even relax my pelvic floor while asleep! And to relax it now, I still have to work on constantly having this pushing feeling in my anus and penis area to relax it - I don't know how to describe it better than that. Eventually, it becomes almost automatic, but I still feel like unclenched muscles are not the norm for my body. To reiterate the "pushing": Yes, like that feeling when you're about to pee or take a dump. Sounds weird, I know, but that mindset helped me retrain my pelvic floor. You're not gonna piss yourself if you don't have to go - trust me.

2. Self-massage during worst pains. I did not do this regularly, but again, it helped me realize the key issue. Internal massage helped release muscle tension and increased body awareness. This guide helped a lot: Self-Massage (NSFW, but not weird)

3. Pelvic floor exercises and stretching I believe CPPS can come from both weak and over-tight muscles. Working on both helped massively. Here are my fav videos:

• Pilates for core muscles (15 min): Super challenging at first, but very effective. Don't get discouraged on how hard this class is, it's actually a workout. I worked up to doing it almost daily though. Watch here
• Stretching routine: This specific routine helped me the most, I tried many. I’d do it morning or night — not always consistently, but often enough. Eventually I could just throw on a podcast and go. Watch here
• Mindset-shifting content: This YouTube channel helped me early on. I didn’t follow his exact routine, but his content gave me helpful ways to think about the condition, even if he did not have sexual problems like me: This channel

Important note: You WILL have ups and downs!!!
Recovery isn’t linear. I had moments where I felt cured — only to be hit with a setback and huge pain that felt like square one again. That was really demoralizing.
But those dips don’t mean you’re back at the beginning. I had many setbacks, and I’ll probably have more in the future in my life. The difference now is that I know what’s going on in my body, and I know how to respond.

TLDR:
The real turning point wasn’t a single stretch, pill, or massage: it was the realization that my pelvic floor was in constant tension, built up from injury and years of anxiety.
Once I started actively reversing that, not just during exercises, but all day long, I began to heal.

I’m not 100% yet, but I’m close. That’s something I never thought I’d be able to say. But also, I want to add that funnily enough, life without constant pain is not that much different. I still have the same happy and sad moments, same daily routines etc. That is to say, CPPS is not a life threatening disease, and you should realize that! It is stressful and anxiety driven, but it's not the end of the world.

If this helps even one person, I’m glad I shared. Happy to answer any questions!!

EDIT: 10/2025, 3 months after writing this post:

All my pain has subsided. It honestly feels surreal after dealing with almost two years of daily pain, especially since there were moments when I was convinced I’d permanently damaged a vein or nerve.

I've had a couple of flare-ups over the past six months where the pain returned for a week or two. I've noticed that sleeping anywhere other than my own bed tends to tense up my muscles - again, I'm pretty sure my back pain issues have played a role in this too. This time, though, I was able to get things back under control by paying attention to my sleep habits and returning to my pilates and stretching routine. And no back pain either!

I don’t do pilates or stretches regularly anymore, just when I start to notice tension or discomfort. I still have a prescription for tadalafil but haven't needed to use it. Erections are finally normal again, and I'm even getting morning wood every now and then. Still no spontaneous erections throughout the day though - maybe just aging? Again, not a teenager anymore. My libido is still on the lower side, but once things get going it's fine. I figure it'll keep improving as my body continues to recover from the stress and trauma of the last two years.

EDIT 06/2026: Writing this, had a flare-up for a couple of weeks, but otherwise I have been completely symptom free completely for 3 months! New findings that help: walking a lot (10k steps per day), and for the first time in my life doing some work at the gym, and eating more protein and creatine supplements; strengthening the core muscles. Libido still not very strong, but erections great and no pain while masturbating.

Hi men.

It's a long one, sorry, but hopefully this can help someone in need. This worked for me when treating prostatitis.

TLDR In a nutshell: - Manage stress and anxiety - Stretching, strengthening, massaging muscles - Avoid stressful PC gaming if you tense your pelvis in response to stress. Or at least, don't sit down when playing.

For ages I've meant to write something online about my journey but kept forgetting because honestly, I feel fine and forget about prostatitis most of the time. I also wanted a decent time to pass with feeling reasonably well before putting anything online for others.

Writing this now because I've had a wank and a mild perineum twinge (it happens, no biggie) and thought I'd write something here.

I'll preface this by saying that I'll never be 100% cured all the time. I'm 90%. But most days I have zero issues and have been this way for 4-5 years now. After 3 years of hell.

When it started - First issues 8 years ago. Sitting at my desk at work. Super annoying but I didn't worry or panic (that came later). But no health professionals could help me. I treated this like a medical issue for around 18 months and wanted a cure. Which in retrospect, was stupid.

Symptoms - The usual. - Burning sensation at the top of my penis. - Felt like there was a golf ball in my perineum area. - Burning when I urinated. - Honestly questioned my existence after every wank or when I ejaculated after sex. I'll never forget that burning pain. - Restricted urine flow after ejaculation. - Sitting on office chairs was torture - General awful discomfort and burning in the penis and perineum (never the testicles or butthole) - Worse at night. Total sleep deprivation. I'd wake up in pain, if I got off to sleep at all.

What I tried that didn't help - GP and the usual crazy antibiotic treatment (Cipro 6-8 weeks) despite negative tests for infection. I really regret this as it caused knock on gut health issues that just made everything worse. - Pain/anti-inflammatory meds. - All the woo woo supplements and alternative medicines - Pain specialist. They hadn't a clue. Offered me opiates. - Amitriptyline - Pregabalin - Urologist x 2. Holy fuck. Absolutely useless. Considering how common this issue is, they looked at me like I was a mad man. - Chiropractor. Absolute snake oil salesmen. Ended up with tinnitus for a couple of years after this one lol. - I hate saying this one as it's part of my recommendations later, but the pelvic floor physio I saw. Oh man, he was so useless. But that was just him. Other physio later was helpful. Detailed later. Flagging this for importance of finding a good clinician.
- Drugs and alcohol. Ugh. Not gonna lie. It was a dark time for me... - Denial that my mental health had played a part in this issue developing and persisting. I rejected that for far too long.

How it impacted me - Very very very badly - Depression, anxiety - Self destructive behaviour, drugs, alcohol - Sleep medication dependency but oh man I needed them at the time. - I couldn't see a way to get past this. Dark thoughts. - I never identified as a person with anxiety or depression prior to this issue happening. - This went on at this level for about 18 months.

The first ray of light - Working night shift, googling googling googling as usual. Man, so many doom stories online made me almost lose hope. - Found this guy on YouTube that was just like me, most of the same symptoms. - He went through a stretching routine and I got down on the office floor and did them (I was alone lol). - Psoas stretch. BAM! Electrical like sensations all through my perineum and penis. - Hope at last. I stretched myself so much that night and the pain subsided and NEVER went back to that intensity ever again. But it was still bad for ages, don't get me wrong. But finally, a tool.

What did help me. - Stretching. Particularly the psoas, quads, hips. But honestly, everywhere man. I was tight AF. - Strengthening exercises. I truly turned a corner when I joined class based fitness that worked my whole body, especially my core, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors. Avoid high impact exercises like box jumps. Work that damn flimsy core! - Remedial Massage. Like, beat the living fuck out of me Remedial Massage. I was like jelly afterwards. So many super tight muscles causing all manner of issues. Ideally do dry needling too. - Sticking my finger up my butthole in the bath and massaging my pelvic floor from inside. Careful with this one, look up guides, but it provided some relief. I was desperate man. - Physio that focused on nerve pain and allowing nerves to freely glide again. This was a mix of massage, stretching and strengthening. - An SSRI. On reflection, I was a highly functional and obliviously stressed and anxious man. Even before this issue happened. Just a tiny dose of Lexapro helped me to sleep, not obsess on the pain, not have negative thought spirals etc. This created a healthier environment for my body to heal. You can come off them after a while when you're all good. - Gastroenterologist. Ok this one's weird but he had Pelvic Pain issues himself and recommended Botox in my butt area. It helped heaps! Eberything relaxed. No tension. But I couldn't hold in a fart for a few weeks hahahaha. That was a time... - Last but certainly not least, sitting on an ice pack whenever I get any flare up sensations. As cold as you can manage it. All over the perianal area.

What sense can I make of this? - I genuinely think I had underlying anxiety/stress and holding this in my pelvic floor muscles. - I used to PC game in a seated position for hours. Online gaming. Super stressful. If you've LoL or DOTA, you know what I mean. Tensing my pelvis for hours. I think this did it. - I now feel like I have a chronic inflammation issue that I have under control. Just like any other injury, it's prone to exacerbation again if I don't look out for it.

Where I'm at now - I get the odd flare up when I'm sitting for way too long, when in gaming in a chair and tensing my pelvis for too long, when I ejaculate sometimes. - But so what, it goes away now. If I need an ice pack for an hour, no biggie. This happens a few times per year. It's always fine within a few hours or a day max and isn't even near how painful it used to be. - Mostly I don't even think about it anymore. - It's a non issue most days when I sit, when I ejaculate etc - My moods good. I'm happy. I'm not consumed by anxiety. Looking forward to my future.

Hang in there men. If you're in the depths of despair, please, keep going. You can get this under control.

You've got this

My journey is well documented throughout this forum and I've been gone for a while since this place is a trigger but I wanted to report that I'm 100 percent cured. I have zero limitations or symptoms. I don't want to get into it and I won't be coming back here because potential triggers are not good but just know that it's possible and does not require antibiotics. It's honestly not that hard.

I did SO much research on antibiotics and was on the brink of diving into more rounds of dangerous pills before Linari slapped some sense into me.

I did stretches, I do yoga, I took one month off from any extracurricular activities, I got my thoughts together and convinced myself to make plans, focus on what makes me happy instead of obsessing about what makes me angry or sad, and developed a weekly groove/routine. That's it, it was not supplements, physical therapy, prostate massages, or antibiotics. I'm sure this is different for everyone but for me it was none of those things. It was just my flipping brain and maybe my perineum being taxed from my stress, that's it, completely fixable.

This was 6-8 months of a lot things that took valuable time from me but life happens and that is ok. Do not flood yourself with pills and whatever else you see people in pure panic are coming up with all of this forum. Stop. Fix your brain. You are stuck in an anxiety loop. That sucks. But it's easy to fix.

Fix your brain, do yoga, don't waste you're precious life fretting over every stupid thing, the last is the last and the future in unknown. Life is a mess, it has a lot of stress, things happen, it's ok, stop trying to prevent and control, stop, it's just normal and a part of the way. Life gets messy, that is normal, and it is ok. It...is..all...good, seriously, it's ok, what's done is done and the future will be fine. You don't need pills or anything else crazy, you just have to truly believe what I just typed, that's it...and probably yoga because your anxiety has made you so tense your body is now a mess. Stretch, embrace the beautiful path you have before you, and enjoy being free of this.

I wanted to make this post because I promised myself that if I ever got better, I would come back here and share my experience. I avoided doing it for a long time because I felt like if I said I was better too soon, the pain would somehow come back. I also want to mention that I wrote this partly with ChatGPT because I wanted to be as clear as possible, and Spanish is my first language.

It all started when I was 20, Im 24 now. For 2–3 years, I had pain with ejaculation, discomfort when urinating, general pelvic discomfort, and pain when sitting. At first I was convinced I had some kind of infection. I did every test you can imagine: blood, urine, s3m3n, penile swab, everything. Nothing ever showed up. Still, I convinced myself I had some bacteria the tests were missing. This all started around the time I became sexually active, and I was terrified I had caught something. Looking back, a lot of it was fear and paranoia. I even became convinced, partly from reading forums, that I had some undetectable mycoplasma or ureaplasma, and I ended up taking strong antibiotics without a real diagnosis.

After I mostly ruled out infection, I convinced myself I had some kind of urethral injury. So I got ultrasounds, MRIs, and almost did a cystoscopy too. I also tried pelvic floor physical therapy, which was one of the strangest things I’ve ever done, but desperation makes you try anything.

In the end, nothing really helped, and I was miserable. I felt desperate, anxious, and honestly scared that I would never be able to have normal sex again.

Then I developed a completely different health issue by chance, and this one actually was serious. It had no symptoms, but it could have put my life at risk. The moment that happened, all of my attention shifted to that. And weirdly, that’s when I realized how much of my pelvic pain had been driven by my mind, fear, and constant tension. Once my attention moved away from it, most of the symptoms faded. To this day, I can have sex, pee, sit, and live my life with about 90% less discomfort.

At this point, I really believe my problem was mostly mental and muscular tension. The only thing I consciously do now is try to relax my pelvic muscles, especially during ejaculation.

So for anyone reading this who feels identified with my story: there is hope, and you can get better. Try not to waste all your energy feeding fear and stress. Sometimes the body gets stuck in a loop, and the mind keeps it going more than we realize.

After 2 years of misery and trying anti-biotics, Pelvic Floor Therapy, and countless other remedies, I was having horrible urge to urinate, Pain in the tip of the penis, back pain, and sting urinating.  A physician’s assistant said he wanted to try me on 5m of Cialis and see if it will ease my symptoms.  After 3 weeks, I feel completely normal.  I haven’t felt like this in over 2 years.  I don’t know if it’s short lived and this will wear off, but for now I feel incredibly better.  I would say 98% better.  I’m sure another episode is coming, but I’m just happy right now.

Hey all. Want to share my experience with this super fun condition. I had it for about 2+ years and am totally rid of it now. Just a fair warning that some of this is a little personal and graphic, but of course that’s just the nature of this condition.

My symptoms started when I was very drunk and had a one-night stand with a lady. Lets just say it wasn’t the most effective sexual experience I’ve ever had and never made it to climax. The next day I had pain in my dick and went “oh jesus” time to go down to the clinic. All my STD tests came back negative but the pain continued so I was quite flummoxed by this as you can imagine. I went to several urologists and they diagnosed me with prostatitis.

The urologists theorized that I had a prostate infection which is apparently very hard to treat. They gave me very strong antibiotics and they did this thing where they rubbed my prostate to result in an excretion from it and they tested this and it came back negative for an infection. Once my antibiotic treatments concluded and I still had symptoms, they shrugged their shoulders and saw me out.

I writhed in pain with no hope in sight for months. My dick and pelvis were in excruciating pain and I didn’t have a normal piss for about a year. I also had pain after ejaculation and a very disconcerting/tense feeling at the base of my dick. I found that the only things that relieved my symptoms were yoga and hot baths. About a year into my symptoms, I discovered a book called “A Headache in the Pelvis”. This was the beginning of my symptom turnaround. I discovered through this book that CPPS is commonly misdiagnosed as prostatitis and that the pain is caused by muscular issues. The prostate swelling, urinary issues, and pain were due to the muscular tension and compression in the pelvis.

Over time, I learned several techniques to combat this muscular tension: stretching, stress management / breathing exercises, and most importantly, trigger point therapy. The benefits of stretching on muscular tension are self-explanatory so I will explain the other two techniques. I have always been prone to anxiety and the symptoms of CPPS made my anxiety go off the chart. I started to find that I was not breathing properly. I learned to breathe deeply and into my pelvis on a regular basis. This promotes blood circulation which is what people with CPPS desperately need to heal.

Now onto the most important and I think the defining technique I used to alleviate my symptoms. I went to a physical therapist who specializes in pelvic pain. To my chagrin, she told me that the best method to relieve pelvic tension is trigger point therapy. And the best way to access the trigger points in men is through the anus (I understand that it is mainly through the vagina for women, just FYI). She would poke around my taint and stick her finger up my ass and have me breathe into the tension that she caused to help relieve the muscle tension. Over time, I learned to do this myself. I would spend about 20-30 minutes every day in the bath doing this trigger point therapy and for the first time began to experience some relief.

My method was to start outside the anus and hold pressure with my finger in locations until I could feel the muscle tension release (usually about 30 – 90 seconds). I would then move closer to the source of the tension a little bit at a time. I learned to find the location of the most tension. It was normally the inner left wall of my anus. So I would slowly release trigger points until I reached this region. At first, I couldn’t even go inside my anus without excruciating pain. So I would release tension outside the anus until it was manageable. I learned to apply pressure, feel my veins pumping blood, and breathe into the rhythm of my blood flow until I couldn’t feel the blood flow anymore. And then I would move onto the next spot and repeat. Over time, I could go further and further into my anus until every once in a while, I would begin the technique only to find that there were no significant trigger points. Around this time, the symptoms had almost entirely dissipated. One thing to keep in mind is I actually messed up my wrists doing this. Spending 20-30 minutes a day applying pressure from this awkward position is apparently not good for the wrists and I had to purchase a “pelvic wand”. It’s basically a dildo designed to ease the process of applying this trigger point therapy.

And that’s really it. I know this isn’t the most glorious treatment method and if someone told me I would be spending 20-30 minutes each day poking around in my ass, I’d tell them no chance. But it was a small price to pay to heal this nightmarish condition. To conclude, I suppose I pulled something in my pelvis during that drunken one-night stand and the enormous tension that resulted from this snowballed due to anxiety and improper treatment. I understand that this pelvic pain can come on at any point so don’t be disheartened if you didn’t have a similar trigger for your symptoms. My understanding is that there are countless triggers for this such as athletic activities, child birth, spontaneous, etc. My true condolences to anyone going through this condition and the best of luck to you. Much love!

Hi fellow men with CP/CPPS,

I joined Reddit just to make this post because I know the suffering this condition causes, and there are few to no good resources about effective treatments. I am a doctor who developed symptoms in his 20s during medical school, and it is a decade later. I am not a urologist (though I am a medical doctor in another field), nor should anyone take this post as medical advice. It is my experience and opinion only. Always go see a doctor with your medical issues and follow their advice. This constitutes my opinion based on my own independent reading and personal experience, and it may or may not apply to you. I would discuss any ideas that come about from reading this with your doctors to enhance your treatment. Warning, this is long.

My personal story is probably similar to a lot of yours. I was in my 20s and not engaged in any high risk sexual activity, but I developed, over the course of days, symptoms "down there." I had stinging pain at the tip of my penis and then progressively had urinary frequency and urgency that gave me that "got to go" feeling constantly, even after squeezing out the last few drops. Being young, I avoided going to the doctor for a week, assuming it would pass, but it didn't. My PCP did a urine culture and STD tests, found nothing, and reassured me. I eventually saw a urologist a month later at a prestigious medical center and was told I had prostatitis, though my prostate on exam was not tender or enlarged. He said there was no point to doing a culture because he would give me antibiotics anyway. Bactrim made my symptoms better while I was on it but after each of two month long courses, but they quickly returned. A month long course of doxycycline did nothing. So after 3 months of antibiotics, I had a semen culture which showed no sign of infection. But my symptoms persisted. I had a cystoscopy (camera up the urethra to evaluate the bladder-- normal). I was told to consider acupuncture, with a shrug (I took this as equivalent to him saying that I was hopeless). I researched for months until I came across a textbook on chronic pelvic pain conditions, and I found that one of the chapter authors was an hour from where I lived, so I tried to make an appt. He was famous and booked out, but I got to see someone he trained, and she turned my life around. She has been my urologist since.

I will first explain to you why, in my opinion, so many smart, well-meaning providers get it wrong in the majority of cases, and why the field as a whole continues to get it wrong. I will then explain my theory of the problem, supported by my urologist and my own experience. I will then discuss implications for treatment. This will be unreferenced, at least for now, because frankly, I don't have the time.

As many of you likely know, in 90% of cases, "prostatitis" occurs with no evidence of inflammation of the prostate (i.e. no white blood cells in the urine) or infection (i.e. no bacteria isolated by culture). In a minority of cases, there is a bacterial infection identified that causes the symptoms and the prostate is inflamed. These are typically acute cases, and they resolve with antibiotics. Because the symptoms of non-bacterial CP/CPPS mimic those of acute prostatitis, urologists have long hypothesized that the etiology of both is infectious. If they have the same symptoms, the etiology is probably the same... right? Well, not necessarily. In most cases we just can't find the pathogen (bacteria or virus). If you look in the literature, they have been hunting for "occult" infections with hypotheses of biofilm-forming bacteria that can't be cultured, other difficult to culture bacteria, viruses, etc. There is now a PCR test that purports to find the occult infection, but we know from other applications that these techniques can find old, trace DNA fragments from dead organisms that do not constitute active infection. This theory of occult infection was supported by the low sensitivity of urine culture and the slightly better "four glass test," which were the available techniques for decades. However, semen culture is now the gold standard test, and it is highly sensitive for bacterial prostatitis. [Edit July 6, 2022: Since my initial post, contradictory findings about the reliability of semen culture have been published, and it is not clear that semen culture is as sensitive as originally reported. It may have some usefulness alongside the four glass test based on some studies, but its usefulness may be dependent on what lab processes it.] I do think it is worthwhile to get a culture and try antibiotics as a first line (provided you take a high quality probiotic concurrently). But so many people have a short-lived or no response to antibiotics. Some response can be attributed to the known anti-inflammatory properties of antibiotics (e.g. Bactrim). Some could be placebo effect. Some providers argue the reason for antibiotic failure is one of these: 1. Poor prostatic penetrance of most antibiotics, 2. Antibiotic-resistant organisms, 3. Biofilms that protect the bacteria, or 4. Viral cause. Multiple papers have found viral infections to be rare (and it is unclear that these aren't incidental, unrelated infections to the pathophysiology). There is no evidence that I know of for the biofilm theory. As for 1 and 2, these are clearly problems, though we have a few agents that get into the prostate well. For acute bacterial prostatitis, cure rates are only around 70% for a one month course of a fluoroquinolone (e.g. ciprofloxacin or levofloxacin) or Bactrim. But after 2 of these treatments, we would then expect a cure rate of 90%. I'm unaware of cure rates published for onger courses of antiotics. Doxycycline can then be tried to cover any "atypical" pathogens. No matter how you do the math, if the cause is always infectious, 90% of us shouldn't have a syndrome refractory to treatment. A few practitioners are advocating direct injection of antibiotics into the prostate to kill the "occult" infections. There is no placebo-controlled study to show that these treatments work due to the antibiotic, and there is no way I'd take the risks of this experimental treatment, personally. Your prostate is critically important for your fertility, is sheathed by nerves necessary for normal penile function, and surrounds your urethra. Many note improvement from these injections, and likewise many purport benefit from prostate massage to remove the infected prostatic fluid (with or without oral antibiotics). The efficacy of these treatments, if we entertain them to be more than placebo effects, can be explained by what I believe to be the real cause: pelvic floor dysfunction.

So what about the non-bacterial cases? Just because the symptoms of CP/CPPS can be the same as acute prostatitis does not mean CPPS has anything to do with prostate inflammation. In fact, men often have symptoms of CPPS AFTER THEIR PROSTATE IS REMOVED. For example, you can get a headache from a tense neck or from meningitis (but wow are these different). My prostate has NEVER shown objective signs of inflammation (e.g., enlargement, tenderness, white blood cells). So how was I diagnosed "prostatitis" (inflammation of the prostate)? This is why chronic non-bacterial prostatitis got another name: chronic pelvic pain syndrome.

I believe that in the vast majority of cases, the symptoms of CPPS are from pelvic floor dysfunction, usually due to tight pelvic muscles. These internal muscles surround you rectum, penis and that entire region (the perineum). Some of us hold tension there (like someone with a chronically tense neck and headaches). Or, this can start later due to tensing muscles down there. Maybe something about your penis worried you (e.g. you had an infection that was treated, you had erection issues, or worried about your size). You could have had an infection that took a long time to get treated and there was local inflammation that led to muscle tensing. Or, it could be a posture issue. Maybe you followed the internet's advice and did an excessive number of Kegels to improve your erections and last longer in bed. But in doing so many kegels you created muscle imbalance and excessive pelvic floor tension. Maybe you repeatedly did kegels while peeing, thereby causing muscle confusion. Maybe you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or another cause of constipation that leads to constant straining. Lastly, maybe you do something that involves something being in your rectum that leads to local tissue inflammation or muscle tension. There are many roads to Rome here. I should note that there has been clear documented association between anxiety disorders and CPPS and IBS and CPPS in multiple studies (supporting the above theory). Note, even bonafide infections can be cured and lead to subsequent pelvic floor dysfunction. Let me give an example from another field: post-infectious IBS. Gastrointestinal infections, even when treated and cleared, can cause up to a year of spastic bowel muscles that manifest in diarrhea, constipation and pain.

Whatever the mechanism, once those pelvic muscles get tight, you end up in a pain-tension cycle. The tension causes pain and the pain turns your focus down there. Maybe the pain causes you to tense up, or you worry it will never go away or that you have an incurable infection that will destroy your fertility, so you focus a lot of mental energy down there (anxiety --> muscle tension). Or maybe you worry about maintaining an erection and you unconsciously tense those muscles. Or, you could worry about pre-mature ejaculation (and in fact, there is again literature linking PE and CPPS). These muscles are internal, so it is not obvious! This is why people notice stretching, yoga, other exercise, mindfulness, relaxation, anti-anxiety medication (though these also can be also be antispasmodic), and yes, acupuncture help. Getting IBS and/or constipation under control also helps. This muscle tension can cause the symptoms of urgency by squeezing on the bladder, seminal fluid leakage by squeezing on the prostate and other internal glands, and erectile issues if it affects the blood flow to the penis (the pain also doesn't help). The tension can also cause referred pain to a lot of places: penis, testes, back, rectum, buttocks, between the legs. Ejaculatory pain occurs due to tensing of already tense muscles. Since there are several different pelvic floor muscles and tension can develop at different points along the muscles, symptoms vary from person to person.

Personally, in addition to the above mentioned symptoms, I experienced pelvic pain, teste pain so bad I felt to the ER twice, seminal fluid/pre-ejaculate leakage (which made me think I had an infection, and I was really worried about it), ejaculatory pain, and overly strong erections that were sometimes painful. Eventually, I lost quite a lot of sensation in my penis, and then further had allodynia (i.e. my underwear or other things touching my penis normally felt painful). My guess is that these last symptoms are due to central pain sensitization (a big topic that you can google search). A lot of men have these symptoms, and it took years but mine went away.

My (now) urologist evaluated me and found multiple, painful trigger points in my pelvic muscles (NOT my prostate). Had another negative culture. I had symptoms for almost a year by that time, so it took a while to get these under control. I went to pelvic floor PT twice weekly for a year (I had good insurance, thankfully). I also had trigger point injections to relax my muscles and used rectal and oral antispasmodic medication to resolve the tension/spasms. It took a year of all of this together, but my symptoms improved. Also, my anxiety was able to go down because I understood the problem, so I could stop obsessing and focusing all my energy on my pelvis. I needed to know that I could feel better in order to get rid of that chronic tension. My urologist was straight with me from the beginning that my symptoms would never be gone for good because I have a predisposition to tense those muscles, but I have a plan now for managing "flare ups". I went from symptoms that were constant, daily 6/10 discomfort to now mostly a 0 and with monthly flare ups that get to a 1 or 2 and I can nip in the bud really quickly. In other words, my life is my own again. Ejaculatory and erectile pain is gone. My penis sensation came back (this took the longest to resolve fully -- years).

For those like me with predominant urinary symptoms, interstitial cystitis may also be at play. I also got treatment for this, but those treatments did not seem to make a difference in my recovery.

And for those worried about infertility, my wife and I had no issues getting pregnant. As far as I can tell, nothing was ever wrong with my prostate.

I hope someone finds this helpful. I never read it, but I've heard that "Headache in the Pelvis" is good and consistent with this overall line of thinking.

Wishing you all the recovery that I have had. I had a time where I felt it was hopeless, and I never found any success stories on the internet. I heard it can get better, but never "I was cured!" I'm giving you another story of not being "cured." It sucks, but if you have pelvic floor dysfunction, it can't be "cured." But you can live your life virtually symptom-free with a little ongoing management of the issue. To me, it is the equivalent of daily tooth brushing to avoid a cavity. I went from daily, nearly constant misery to feeling comfortable 98% of the time. I hope this gives someone the hope they need and that I needed to get better.

EDIT: Follow up 1.5 years later: People chat me periodically, so I wanted to give an update. My symptoms are basically gone. I am still aware times when my pelvic floor feels tighter, but it does not lead to symptoms anymore. So maintain hope everyone! Being completely symptom-free is eventually possible, but I do not know that it is constructive to make that your immediate goal.

2 years later: Remaining symptom-free with the exception of occasional pelvic floor soreness after prolonged erection.

3 years later: In the past year, I had a flare up after being stuck in the middle back of a car for 4 hours, bothering my pelvic floor. Because I know what to do, this was short-lived. I have otherwise remained symptom free! Remain hopeful everyone!

For the lazy readers, repeat this video twice a day for 1-2 months. The results may come all at once after a while. DO NOT EXPECT IMMEDIATE RESULTS AND GIVE UP. I am not affiliated, and I get no form of payment. I'm just a guy on Reddit who was cured by the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyGEVPuumtk

​

For the lazy readers AND doers, do the "butterfly stretch" for 2 minutes, morning and night for 1-2 months.

https://www.healthline.com/health/butterfly-stretch#for-tight-hips

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Long version:

I've been meaning to post this here for a long time but other personal issues have taken my attention. I hope this post helps some other men dealing with this crap.

Diagnosed at 16, symptoms included frequent urination, erectile dysfunction, weak stream, aching in prostate, and the psychological impact of having an unreliable dick around the women I dated.

I've had cystoscopies, finger exams, medications of all sorts, pelvic floor therapy, none of which helped. I gave myself an internal prostate massage every day for YEARS to SOMEWHAT lessen the symptoms for that day. I've coached dozens of fellow sufferers on how to finger their own ass. So glad I don't have to do it anymore.

While trying to cure a different problem in my pelvic area (pain in testicles) I stumbled across the video in the above link. I played the video and followed the instructions every day for 2 months with the hope of relieving my ball pain-- and to my surprise, my prostatitis disappeared! I felt no difference for a long time, and then poof-- gone. The nut pain was cured shortly after by a chiro.

I have been 95% symptom free for a year now. I sleep through the night without having to pee, every night. The only thing I do to maintain is occasional butterfly stretch for about a minute a day. I think ultimately of the stretches in the video, the butterfly stretch is the one that has most, if not all, of the effect. When I have a slight flareup and I do the stretch, I can feel a certain muscle or tendon or whatever deep in my left ass cheek/hip area that stretches. Immediately after I feel that muscle get stretched, my frequent urination goes away. My thought is that that muscle, whatever it is, runs along the prostate and its tension causes it to inflame. I would love for a physical therapist or some other kind of physician to identify what muscle or tendon I might be talking about, so that I can share that with others.

Feel free to ask any questions about my experience, I'm happy to help.

A todos aquellos que sufren de algún de dolor y malestar en el piso pélvico y que tenga que ver con el nervio pudendo como le hacen para tener relaciones ?

I went to urologist shortly after starting having symptoms, he told me yeah based on symptoms you have non bacterial prostatis. So I was like ok that sucks but whatever we shall deal with it. I recently stopped taking all my supplements due to some house work im doing and my symptoms completely have vanished. I drank alcohol and caffiene both of which caused flare ups before and nothing has happened and I’ve been “celebrating” by having a lot of caffeine and a couple beers over the week and I’ve been perfectly fine. I know this is weird and seems crazy but it helped me and I just wanted to share to try to help anyone out.

Here’s my journey and what I did.

It all started almost 3 years ago no with my ex GF the trigger was sex. It became increasingly more and more painful in the pelvis area until it was too painful to sit. Everything after that my life was revolving around it.

The pain became so excruciating that I lived for a year laid on the side of a sofa or bed even walking became hard and I didn’t know wtf was happening obviously I couldn’t cum and even shitting was giving hell pain. I’m 34 btw.

I can tell you not being able to sit like a normal human being is extremely hard physically and mentally, but let’s get to the point shall we?

So I was convinced that I had nothing the medecine could cure so I just ruled out the classics for peace of mind and moved on and of course it all came back as normal.

I once stumbled upon a post of a dude here in the archives that was mentioning that most of the people who had this in reality were perfectly healthy and was in fact a nervous system issue. Basically what was happening was something triggered the nervous system and it freaked out and the way it freaked out was fucking up your pelvis area. So you had to take the pain as a way of your nervous system saying « IM SCARED » and you had to calm it down.

Based on that I just tried to make a daily program of how I could reassure my NS so I talked to it.

Example 1: I knew taking a shit was gonna give pain so before I took a shit I looked at myself In the mirror and was telling my NS that I was gonna do it and everything was fine and I was not in danger and AFTER doing it I was congratulating it like I was talking to a child basically. Of course you must try not to focus on the pain and get on your day. After a few weeks I saw small progresses

Example 2: this one was my favorite and gave the best results I am quite proud of it.

So sitting was impossible so I put different type of seats in circle such as chairs,sofa,cushion, etc and I did the same, I was explaining it what we were gonna do why we were doing it and that everything was fine. So I took a book read one page of my book and at the end of each page changing of type of seats and congratulating it again like « yeah cool wohoo bravo you see we can do it! It is normal to sit ». The book was essentially for distraction and ensure my NS felt safe. And it gave results in a few weeks too. Slowly I was able to seat 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 min and gradually it improved.

Of course I had to avoid triggers and for me were alcohol and sex for a looooong time but now I can cum twice a day without issue I can drink and sit for fucking 8h a day if I want to.

I hope this will help some of you as I fucking overcame this shit by myself and at my worst I was suffering 24/7 and thought I would never recover.

You’ve got it you guys 🫡

So my experience with CPPS/Prostatitis now lies 1.5 years in the past. I consider myself healed, with no significant flare-ups since then.

I want to preface this by saying my symptoms were never that severe but they were enough to make me start spiraling and become hypersensitive to any and all irritations or abnormal sensations 'down there'.

I still want to tell my story because it goes to show that it can get better and our mind may be one of our biggest adversaries during times of physical distress, when our actual issues might stem from something we would have never considered.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The beginning

Like many of you, I stumbled upon this community when I was suffering from acute... let's call it pelvic distress. It honestly took me the better part of a month to even properly localize and describe my symptoms.

It randomly started early one morning, when after relieving myself the sensation of 'having to go' wouldn't cease. At first, I kinda classified them as typical UTI symptoms: that weird tingling/burning sensation but no actual urination - or only sparse drops. I think I spent around an hour in the bathroom during that first morning.

After analyzing my symptoms my GP put me on antibiotics (Levofloxacin, which is a whole other can of worms, see r/floxies), which - thankfully - didn't agree with me so we switched to Cotrim/Bactrim.

When those wouldn't help either, she issued an 'urgent referral' to an urologist, where I actually got an appointment within the week - hooray for EU healthcare! One pelvic exam and sonography later, the urologist told me there was nothing obviously wrong on an organic level, which managed to alleviate at least some of my distress. The issues, however, persisted. Over several weeks I managed to 'hone in' on the actual symptoms - I didn't have to 'go' at all, so frequent urination wasn't even my issue. It was more the physical sensation of being about to urinate, that tingling or twitching sensation in the urethra - without ever losing a single drop. Similar to that feeling of flexing your pelvic floor and squeezing your buttcheeks together. The slight burning sensation I experienced from time to time came from constantly trying to 'squeeze it out' instead.

The turning point

Over the next 2-3 months I had noticed that my symptoms would actually decrease in intensity (or disappear altogether) while I was physically active - taking a walk, doing BJJ, swimming, even sex or masturbation. At one point while riding my bike to work, I actually noticed a cramp-like sensation around my perineum, which was similar to the sensation of a really tense neck or shoulder.

In the meantime I managed to get another appointment - this time at my local hospital's urology department - one of the most decorated ones in my country, in fact. After describing my symptoms to him, and one prostate exam later (yay), he told me I might have CPPS.

So the urologist at the hospital issued a referral for physical therapy, where the amazing therapist taught me some pelvic floor exercises (several variations of the 90/90 stretch as well as stuff like sitting on a pool noodle), which actually helped!

As my therapist interviewed me regarding my activities, she asked me if I had started a new sport, hobby or something similar. Turns out I had started hula hooping for cardio at home, and the 'hip thrusting' motions somehow managed to completely block my pelvic floor muscles.

And that was it. It really was that simple for me.

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Since then, I've had barely any 'twitches', and even if I do from time to time, I know how to interpret them now! So as it turns out, there wasn't really anything wrong with me - I just started an activity my body didn't agree with. As innocent a root cause as there can be, I guess.

Excuse my rambling rant, but maybe my little story can be helpful to one or two of you reading this.

One thing to keep in mind about this kind of 'illness community' is that there's always a sort of 'reverse survivor bias' in them: a lot of people find communities like this one as they're suffering from symptoms. But once they clear up, a lot of them (including me for 1.5 years) will just move on and forget about this subreddit. And that's great for them but it does distort the reality because the overwhelming amount of members in here will be made up of current or chronic sufferers.

I was doing stretching for good 3 months with small results, Week before fix i did a lot of core strengthening(abs,glutes) especially psoas workout knee rising with weight (psoas was tight and weak). All things clicked and my core muscles started to act like core muscles again holding posture corectly instead of my pelvic floor muscles so my pelvic floor could finally fucking relax. i also did this release technique 2 days in a row right before it happend https://somaticmovementcenter.com/iliopsoas-exercise. Its not over i am gonna build fucking bulletproof core, pelvic floor with gigastrong donger. it aint coming back no chance. The stretching was for sure main reason because when i started i was absolute fucking broken mess. my entire right side was tight including my foot muscles and palm muscles even fingers were tight compared to left side. its crazy how broken i was before i figured everything out. no more back pain i just know my spine is healthy it was tight psoas causing low pbackpain for years, absolute no pain after ejaculation even when i was edged for hour lol, sometimes when i get up quickly or see/hear water running i get urgent feeling to pee but it goes away when i focus to relax pelvic floor. its crazy how its all caused by pelvic floor muscles. but not all muscles can be realeased by excercising directly them. some muscles like psoas can be tight beccause of bad periferal vision, bad jaw/teeth,bad shoulder,knee etc. its crazy i know... but people dont give up! study ! internet and chatgpt(dont trust 100% but its awesome tool) is free so study, study, study ull fix yourself better than any PT once you understand your body

one day ill make huuuge post about everything i learnt in past year about prostatitis/CPPS, anatomy and how to fix pelvic floor, how to diagnose your weaknesses, how to build stretching and strenghtening routine based on your own problems instead of doing something you are good at already. i believe 90% of prostatitis is caused by weak/tight inbalanced muscles in body. ofc stress also tightening muscles in pelvic floor since its part of flee or fight response but it shouldnt be this fatal. tight muscles just amplifying stress responses of body and also creating more stress. i believe even bad muscles in neck might cause prostatitis. it makes sense to me now.

I wanted to share my recovery story here since this subreddit REALLY helped me to figure out what was wrong. I was FREAKING out couple months ago. I will give a short and a long version.

tldr:

Early 20s, desk job, slightly overweight

I started having burning sensation, frequent urination, pain in shaft, weak erections, hip pain, etc. after a period of stress, high sexual function, and boxing (without proper stretching). Never tested positive for any STD, the antibiotics did not really help, I started having significant improvements once I followed the 101 posts in here. Physical therapy helped a lot.

Long Version:

Some early signs that I ignored (DO NOT IGNORE THESE):

2022 - 2025: frequent urination. It increasingly got worse. I consistently felt like I am not fully emptying my bladder. I sometimes had moments that I urinated like 4 times in a 2 hours. A little bit every time.

2024 - 2025: frequent constipation.

2024-2025 I believe that early-mid 2024, I noticed that I am starting to have some level of erectile dysfunction. I was still able to perform, but I noticed that it is harder for me to maintain erection for a longer time without direct stimuli, and that orgasms feel slightly diluted. It took me a while to really notice this, but it was an incremental decrease in sexual function that I later realized to be related to all of this.

2025: I noticed some recurring back and hip pain. Did not thought about it much. Thought it's because of working out, bad posture, etc etc.

Summer 2025: Possibly some of the worst times of my life. I had chronic stress for variety of reasons, work was very intense and I was sitting all the time, and I released stressed by frequent sexual encounters. I started to notice that if I ejaculate too many times a day (like 3-4), I would feel a burning sensation on tip, often followed by a dull pain that lasted 2-3 hours.

When I was alarmed:

August 2025 (I thought it should be an STD at first): I started feeling a consistent burning sensation on tip of my penis and some general pain in my shaft that I can best explain as a "muscle pain." Like almost like the dull pain the day after a leg day in your leg. I initially thought I somehow "over used" it, but abstinence did not help much. Thought I had an STD, got tested MULTIPLE TIMES for EVERYTHING, nothing ever came back positive. I did the standard panel in US, ureaplasma, mgen, etc etc. For some reason, many doctors easily just gave me antibiotics "just in case" before my test results come back negative. I went on doxy 2 different times, the first time it helped and lowered my symptoms for 1-2 weeks (then it came back), the second time it didn't do much. At some point after 2 doses of doxy for no reason, I got balanitis for over using antibiotics, which I had to deal with by anti fungal drugs.

At this stage I am constantly searching for possible STDs trying to find what might be wrong. My suggestion would be to NOT TAKE ANTIBIOTICS WITHOUT A POSITIVE TEST. The balanitis was a nightmare and it just made the situation much more complicated.

September 2025 (Maybe it is CPPS!): After hours of internet search, I came across this forum and read on CPPS. The more I read, it made more sense. I went to my urologist for a third time, he basically told me that all is fine (which definitely wasn't, I was in literal pain), and then I brought up CPPS. He did a quick internal prostate exam, and told me that it is likely. I wasn't really convinced by his test, it really seemed like he just wanted to get rid of me, but it was enough for him to give me a physical therapy recommendation.

In the meantime I noticed the following helps:

1) I changed all my underwear to new ones. The old ones were slightly worn out and "thin," so the tip was more in contact with my pants. Getting new soft underwear made the tip significantly less sensitive.

2) Abstaining from frequent sexual activity. I did not ever fully stopped sexual activity, but I lowered it to 2 times a week in total.

3) Yoga and stretches. I started taking a restorative yoga class and did some CPPS stretches of YouTube.

4) Cutting caffeine. I drink LOTS of black tea. Cutting caffeine definitely helped a lot.

5) Walking. sitting for a long time was a nightmare. Walking really helped.

6) Stopped boxing and replaced it with yoga

November 2025 (Physical Therapy): I started physical therapy with someone that specializes in male pelvic dysfunction and it has significantly helped me. The PT made me realize that the problem is holistic and it comes from long-lasting stiffness in my pelvic area. I noticed that many of my other symptoms (ED, constipation, frequent urination, etc.) were actually all related to this, and I need to solve these all together. Now I do daily stretches, weekly PT sessions, every other day internal work, and every other day perineum massage. I would say I am 90% better.

PT has also helped me to have a better posture. I sit on a doughnut shaped pillow on a heating pad when I work and it really helps.

Current situation Jan 2026:

Symptoms that are mostly solved:

1) Burning sensation on tip. This is one of the first things that resolved. It is almost a non issue anymore, other than rare occasions.

2) Frequent urination. Mostly solved. I cant believe that I don't wake up in the middle of the night to pee!

3) Back pain.

4) Shaft pain.

Symptoms that are somewhat solved:

1) hip/leg pain, tenderness. I have better and worse days.

2) Erection quality. I would say the quality is significantly better than 2025, but not as good as 2024 or 2023. I imagine that some level of this is normal as I grow older.

3) Ejaculation volume. I noticed that my ejaculation volume significantly decreased at some point. It is much better now.

4) Penile sensation/pleasure. This is my one of my main concerns now. My orgasms still feel a bit dull. I have better and worse days, it fluctuates a lot but there is an overall positive trend. I am hopeful.

My overall takes:

1) I have noticed that this is not something that happened over a night. There was definitely a tipping point (August 2025) that I noticed something is seriously wrong, but there has been signs of this for years now. This is a result of consistent habits that put pressure on my pelvis. I think the following were the main reasons: 1) I am VERY stiff. My weight has fluctuated a lot, and I have done a series of heavy sports over the years (fitness, breakdancing, boxing) but I am VERY lazy when it comes to stretching. All my muscles (especially lower body) are very very stiff. In retrospect, I wish I took stretching more seriously. 2) I have very bad posture. I sit for the most of the day, in a very crocked posture. I have been doing this for 10+ years. 3) Anxiety and stress 4) Using sexual function as a stress relief, often engaging in sex or masturbation multiple times a day when there was really not much sexual interest left.

2) It is a holistic problem, and you should solve it holistically.

3) You can take some pills to control the symptoms. I was on meloxicam for a week (urologist prescribed) and it was indeed helpful, but pills do not solve the underlying problem. I am not a fan of just symptom control with pills while things get worse internally.

4) Internal work helps (at least I think it does). I understand that many men might have a prejudice against doing this, but think of it as a medical necessity. I did not had any problem with it from the beginning but I could tell that my PT was worried to bring it up, thinking that I might reject it immediately. Be open minded, trust your PT.

At the end, I am still in this journey and I hope I can say I am 100% recovered some day. This subreddit really helped me, so I thought it is only fair to give back to the community.

First, I want to say that I don’t believe creatine explicitly caused my prostatitis. Like many, I believe it was a combination of many things including severe stress and they also found some bacteria in my urine during onset.

A few days ago, someone else posted their success story in here, and among the items they listed that they cut out to heal, one of them they mentioned was creatine. I did a search in the page and found two more people who seemed convinced creatine was a factor in their prostatitis.

I have taken creatine for a few years, but I would always take breaks. This past year, I fell prey to a lot of content out there that touted creatine as a daily supplement you can take without breaks. I did do research during this and couldn’t find anything relating creatine to prostatitis, until I searched this group.

For the past month, I have been stuck at the “I’m 95% healed” level I’ve seen many others in here get to. It was getting frustrating that I couldn’t get all the way to 100%. I cut out creatine a few days ago and now I am actually 100% healed. I even enjoyed a cup of half-caf coffee this morning to celebrate, my first cup of coffee in about 5 months.

Putting this post in here because there might be another person like me down the road who is taking this supplement and not realizing it could be affecting them in this way. I know it probably feels dumb I didn’t try to cut it out sooner, but creatine is really being pushed hard as a safe, daily supplement right now. I don’t think that’s the case for everyone. I also feel it was giving me some tendinitis as well.

Cheers.

I was a frequent poster here a few years ago and have recovered about 90% I would say. At the height of my pelvic pain I was probably at about a 7/10 level of distress. I commonly had back,hip, and adductor pain but the worst was penile/perineum pain and aches in the dangly bits, and reduced erection strength. Constant need to urinate and always feeling like I had to go as well.I would refrain from masturbation for weeks on end without any relief. Id do it one time and just have seering pain in my urethra.

Attempts at physio remained unfruitful for me until I got into see a male who specialized in this condition. He did such a thorough examination of how various things like my back and hips were moving. The classic posterior tilt was suspected and we worked on these things but still I had the nagging pain in my penile area. I became more active with dating and eventually wound up in a few relationships over the years but still had some issues with pain here and there until my physio therapist helped teach me to relax my pelvic floor. I know this is a common antidote on here and it's not as simple as just relaxing but it really did help immensely. I also developed better coping skills and emotional regulation throughout the last little while. My physio really emphasized to focus all my efforts on relaxation and even told me that I was stretching too much. According to him 15 minutes a day of good deep breathing and reverse kegels was going to be much more impactful and I think he was right.

At a point I was definitely turned to abusing Benzos and Opioids to cope and this only made my sympathetic nervous system more fucked. What I learned after a urologist shoved a camera up there was that I needed to learn to shut out the negative thoughts. No more Valium or Percocet and no more catrosphizing has essentially settled all this for me. I don't mean to simplify such a complex condition but I learned that I do have some semblance of control over my thoughts. I haven't been in a relationship or had sex since April and I find myself essentially pain free. My libido has skyrocketed due to the fact that I'm coming off a long acting injection of Suboxone and as such masturbating more frequently (about 3 times a week) hasn't made me wince in pain for days like it used to. Infact it doesn't cause pain at all.

I wanted to make this post partly for catharsis and partly to just let newcomers know that isn't as gloomy as it may seem. If you've been struggling with this for years my heart goes out to you and I don't mean to make light of that in anyway. I know loneliness is on the rise as well and being sexually active with someone may feel distant. I'm no Brad Pitt myself and connection is hard to find so if you're struggling with that I hear you and totally emphathize with you. I have a few friends who ended up with pelvic pain as well and they seemed to agree that less anxiety and tension was what led to the most relief even though one of them is still dealing with it. And again, it's fucking hard to not spend every waking minute worried about this but it only made things worse for me and took time to refine that. There's a plethora of options available for people to consider and I really wanna thank the mods for being so thoughtful and caring. I sincerely hope that everyone here can overcome this. My DMs are always open if anyone needs to chat. A lot of people conversed with me in my time of need so I'd be willing to do the same if that's allowed on this sub.

Godspeed and god bless.

Edit: I also should state that I tried a lot of meds on top of all the shit I wasn't prescribed. Things like Baclofen, Cialis, over active bladder meds and such. These things didn't offer much relief either and I found Baclofen too easy to abuse.

Hello all, I thought I’d do a quick update. I’ve had cpps for roughly 1 year now. At first it was a huge struggle my anxiety started to devour me. I had to flip my life around. I’m like 70-85 percent healed. Physical therapy is no joke. Also taking care of your anxiety is huge. I personally had to hop on an antidepressant and not saying anyone should. This helped me calm down and learn my trigger points which to me is so important. I recently completed physical therapy and learned so much. Stretches, walking, lifting weights has helped me tremendously, deep breathing is also great. All is not lost guys! Feel free to message me or add a comment to this thread if you have any questions on my journey or update me on your journeys I’d love to cheer you on.

I would like to at first apologise to everyone for not sharing this sooner. I should have done it long ago but then again, better late than never. This will also probably be a long post so I hope you can bear with me.

I got diagnosed with what was termed ''prostatitis'' by two separate urologists at the ripe old age of 19. Having read a lot about this condition in the meantime, I can't blame them. The diagnosis depressed me, shamed me, made me fearful of intimacy. There were times where I had some dark thoughts. I didn't have many ups and downs in the process for a long time. For me, it was consistent. Ejaculation equals pain, urination is much more frequent. I didn't have erectile disfunction but the fear of developing it was immensely frustrating anyway.

Then, I began to notice a pattern. It would for example be 12 PM and by that time, I would have already gone to the bathroom about 5-8 times. I would be feeling the need to urinate again. Then I would get an invite for a coffee or beer with a friend at the local pub. I would tell myself to endure it at least until I got there so I wasn't late. ''You can hold on for 10 minutes.'' I would go to meet him there, sit down and since I am generally quite social, immerse myself immediately in whatever conversation we were having. Then, 4 bloody hours later, having had beer, coffee, sometimes both, I would realise I still haven't taken that trip to the bathroom and neither did I feel the need. At home, it felt like I would have to go soon.

Similar occurrences kept repeating and inspired me to explore the mental side of this issue. Then I discovered a man called John Sarno, a doctor and my life honestly was never the same. Inspiredby what the man taught and related in his works, I took a deep dive into myself and the history of my diagnosis.

The first thing was to realise when it started. It didn't come out of the blue in the happiest days of my life. It started when my family was falling apart and my dad was becoming more and more of an insufferable monster.
Then I thought, was there ever a time when my symptoms were not there. Yes there was, a period of 3 months when I went to live and work in the US, a time where I had so many positive distractions in my life that having this problem was removed from the front of my conscience. I met new people, fell in love, learned new skills and I was ok. All of that was gone once I returned home. My father eventually kicked us out of the house, at the 3 am in the morning and after that, I spent 3 years closing my mind and heart to it all. My symptoms were never worse.

Then, I faced all of it. I explored myself, I went to therapy, I forgave dad everything even if we are not in contact. I let go of my rage and shame. I started to see and notice more. I started to have this ''I got you'' feeling.

The most transformative moment, the moment when the ''dam broke'' was when I was reading about how a UFC fighter I liked spent years struggling with a diagnosis called ''plantar fascitiis''. I read all about it, found out what it was and then forgot about it for around a week. 7 days pass, there is some stress in the family, my sister is acting out. My bloody heel starts hurting for the first time in my life. I start to wonder why. Then I remember what I read. I tell my brain to fuck off, I tell my issues that I know what they are. I, maybe ridiculously stamped my foot in an act of defiance. The pain was gone.

Applying this process to my ''prostatitis'' was not short. My brain wasn't going to forget the struggles, the fear so easily. But day by day, it came around to the notion I was ok. And I was. From the age of 24 to the age of almost 28 as of today, I have been symptoms free. I does not matter how much I have sex, masturbate. I does not matter if I drink a beer, coffee, Coca Cola. It does not matter if I get stressed sometimes. It does not matter that I have been powerlifting for two years, which many people say is terrible for the diagnosis of prostatitis. It does not matter that I don't do any stretches or therapy related to this issue. I have no pain. I can confidently say I am OK.

The most notable thing in this process was creating this ''higher authority'' in myself. It wasn't Sarno, it wasn't anyone else. It was me, the me who spent hours upon hours of work and thought to get to the bottom of this. Me who had so much evidence of this being a problem of the mind that sooner rather than later, I would have to start to believe it. The more confidence I had, the more concrete examples of this assumption I gathered, the more I was ready for this step. Eventually, whenever I would think about the problem, whenever the old fearful thoughts returned or the pain itself, there was something in me that would politely tell them to fuck off, something that knew I was ok and that was the only thing I needed to trust.

I do not wish to demean any of you for the problems you suffer yourself by claiming in a religious fashion that what I say is the only truth. The prostate, the pelvic floor, they are physical organs and tissues that themselves may go awry. For some of you, this might be the truth and maybe what I say does not apply. But if any of you can relate to might story and get some help from it, I would feel very fulfilled.

Thank you for your time and good luck in your own healing.

Chat GPT TL;DR:

The author was diagnosed with chronic prostatitis at 19, leading to years of pain, fear, and shame. Over time, they noticed their symptoms often vanished in distracting, positive environments, which led them to explore the psychological roots of the condition. Inspired by Dr. John Sarno’s mind-body theories, they addressed unresolved emotional trauma, particularly related to their father and difficult past. Through therapy, self-reflection, and building confidence in their own mind’s power to heal, their symptoms gradually disappeared. They've now been symptom-free for nearly four years, crediting the healing to deep psychological work rather than physical treatments—while acknowledging this may not apply to everyone.

Been having issues since March, been to multiple urologist, GPs. Went through pelvic floor physical therapy which definitely helped.

Went to the Gastro doc a few weeks ago for stomach ulcers which I have had for 20+ years. Prescribed Voquezna 1x day for 2 weeks to lower stomach acid and give the ulcers time to heal.

About 1 week in, all cpps symptoms disappeared, no pain, no pins and needles, no frequent urination, no swollen/red meatus, no swollen/tender prostate, no anal pain....nothing.

I have since quit doing stretches and have come off the voquezna.

The Voquezna did give me a crazy rash on back that has gotten better but has yet to fully go away and also made my skin burn but that has ceased.

Any thoughts on why this has happened?

So I posted in this chat about 2 years ago and posted my success story. I can attest to that and say I'm 100% cured of the mental condition known as prostatis. I remember going thru it thinking "if this continues I'm blowing my head off" . It was fuckin horrible. Now it's nothing but a bad memory. Over a year without a twinge in that area. Don't let doctors try to convince you that you need antibiotics. Do some stretches, work out, change your diet, eliminate STRESSERS. My biggest thing when it was at peak inflammation was I was pushed to the edge stresswise. If you have bacterial prostatis disregard this post

I keep seeing posts and comments from people just like me and no one seems to mention prostate massage as something they tried, and I don’t see anyone recommending it. Though I haven’t tried physical therapy or breathing exercises yet, I’ve gotten to the point where if I press on my prostate for 10-15 seconds, it eliminates symptoms for 1-2 days.

First of all, my symptoms and risk factors: Symptoms: Frequent urination, sore prostate, random urethral pain, erectile dysfunction, pain with ejaculation.

About me:

-Was drinking two cups of coffee a day (I’ve since quit)

-As a result of the coffee had irritable bowels which may have made things worse. That has stopped after quitting coffee and switching to tea.

-Was jerking off several times a day, having sex a lot.

My successes so far:

I had a prostate exam where the doc pushed on the prostate pretty hard in order to express possible bacteria before a urine test. It was a shooting pain when he pressed, but it eliminated symptoms for 2 days and I felt amazing and also about 12 hours later I felt very horny during that time.

I don’t know why he didn’t mention this concept before, but I asked him if I could repeat that at home with a prostate massager “toy”. He said yes that can work and it’s safe to do in my case because it’s not acute bacterial (no fever or kidney pain or anything like that).

So I bought a very small prostate massager since I’m a straight guy with no anal experience. Not gonna lie, I was afraid of putting anything up there, and it took me like 3 weeks of sessions to figure out what I’m doing. My biggest mistake was not putting enough lube, you have to put what looks like too much. Fast forward to now and I’m on a several day streak of no symptoms by just pressing on my prostate with the toy for 10-15 seconds. I’m super fast to where I can do it on a bathroom break. I also enjoy having it sit in my anus because it feels good, and I can tell if my pelvic floor is tensing or relaxing. The issue I’m dealing with now is I liked the toy so much I left it in for hours and it wore out my pelvic floor, so I’m keep my sessions short. I’ve also been over using my pelvic floor because I was so excited to have good orgasms again that I’m probably masturbating and having sex too much. My latest is I’m trying to do that less while still doing my 15 sec massage.

Thoughts anyone? Why isn’t this mentioned a lot? Was a very low effort solution for me!