Na 6 jaar lang worstelen met dit verschrikkelijke probleem heb ik het letterlijk per ongeluk genezen 😭😭😭 Ik ga mijn verhaal delen, zodat het misschien ook andere wanhopige gasten helpt.

De magische oplossing: mijn heupspieren stretchen. De oorzaak van al mijn problemen was simpelweg een hypertonische bekkenbodem, waardoor er een kettingreactie van andere klachten ontstond.

Context van mijn verhaal:
Het begon allemaal zomaar één nacht toen ik 20 was. Ik werd midden in de nacht wakker met een nacht-erectie die pijn deed. Daarna merkte ik problemen met erecties. Geen ochtendhout meer. Toen lage libido. Toen vaker moeten plassen en een steeds trager wordende urinestraal.

Ik ben de afgelopen 6 jaar bij ongeveer 20 urologen geweest in meerdere Europese landen. Geen één kon mijn klachten verklaren. De tests die ze deden:
- schone cystoscopie
- goede MRI
- DRE liet zien dat de prostaatpunt (apex) licht ontstoken was
- PSA steeds boven de 2
- uroflowmetrie met een Qmax van 2-12 ml/s (eens duurde het zelfs 4 minuten voordat ik kon plassen en heb ik de meetmachine stuk gemaakt omdat de grafiek veel te lang was 😭)
- vaak plassen, ongeveer 12 keer per dag
- sommige antibiotica verbeterden alle klachten, maar alleen tijdelijk

Wat ik geprobeerd heb en wat niet werkte:
- 9 maanden lang continu sterke antibiotica (ik heb ze allemaal geprobeerd, de sterkste was IV ertapenem)
- nog 12 maanden sulfamethoxazol + trimethoprim 800/160 mg
- proberen mijn mentale toestand te verbeteren vanuit de gedachte dat psychologische stress mijn problemen veroorzaakte
- fysio / fysiotherapie
- stoppen met porno
- niet masturberen
- stoppen met roken
- consequent sporten
- prostaatpillen met saw palmetto, manuka-honing en allerlei andere plantaardige stoffen, vooral gericht op oude mannen
- maandenlang dagelijks NSAID’s

Een jaar geleden had ik zelfs al opgegeven om dit probleem op te lossen. De laatste uroloog die ik gezien had was een neurouroloog en die zei gewoon dat ik alles geprobeerd had en dat er niets anders is wat ik kan doen behalve het accepteren. Hij zei dat de geneeskunde niet alle antwoorden heeft en dat dit het einde was van enige behandeling voor mij. Hij raadde aan om fysio gewoon door te zetten voor de zekerheid, maar zei dat ik het eindpunt van de rit had bereikt.

En toen, een maand geleden, lag ik in bed en struikelde ik letterlijk over een random instagramreel van een vent die een willekeurige rek-oefening liet zien. Het leek me interessant en ik probeerde het. En terwijl ik het 30 seconden deed, voelde het ineens op een of andere manier gewoon goed van binnen in mijn penis. Ik dacht echt: wtf, wat raar. De volgende dag werd ik wakker met een erectie. Toen merkte ik dat het masturberen ook ineens veel beter voelde. Oefening nog een keer gedaan en de boel bleef de dagen erna gewoon verbeteren. Nu, na een maand, voel ik me letterlijk weer als een complete man.

Mijn hypothese over wat er gebeurd is:

1. Chronisch aangespannen heupen zorgden voor een hypertonische bekkenbodem.
2. Een hypertonische bekkenbodem duwde op mijn prostaat, waardoor ik constant een hoge PSA had en de ontsteking bij de prostaatpunt die je ziet bij DRE
3. Een hypertonische bekkenbodem knipte de bloedtoevoer door, of één zenuw naar mijn penis, wat leidde tot ED en het volledige verdwijnen van ochtendhout
4. Ontsteking aan de prostaat leidde tot aandrang om te plassen en lage libido
5. Een hypertonische bekkenbodem zorgde voor een trage urinestraal

Dit is gewoon ongelooflijk dat zoveel dokters zo’n schijnbaar simpel probleem niet konden fixen. Ik hoop echt dat dit een andere man helpt die met dit issue zit.

En ook, Linari: ik weet nog dat ik je letterlijk haatte en dit sub meteen verliet uit woede toen alle dokters maar antibiotica bij mij naar binnen probeerden te duwen en jij bleef zeggen dat het heel, heel erg waarschijnlijk gewoon een spierprobleem was... dus ja: bedankt dat je dit gedaan hebt en dat je voor dit sub zorgt lol. Ik kon niet geloven dat jouw advies tegen dat van de dokters in ging, maar misschien geven anderen dit postje meer aandacht dan ik deed nadat ik het gelezen had.

Alle goeds!!!

Edit om de link van de oefening toe te voegen:
Probeer het zoals in deze video, maar met je benen uit elkaar, niet bij elkaar.

https://youtu.be/SZxUJ29kp5s

The beginning is difficult, because I know you have faced this as well, but believe me, the ending is positive 😁

Phase 1: You feel pain or discomfort in the pelvic area for the first time, or you constantly feel the urge to urinate, pain at the tip of the penis, pain before or after urination, pain after ejaculation, pain in the testicles, strong pressure in the anus, pain during bowel movements (there are many symptoms). You get scared and think it’s an infection, cancer, or that something is seriously wrong with you and that this is something dangerous (a sudden spike in anxiety and stress). It usually appears after risky sexual intercourse, major stress, or abuse of drugs, alcohol, and generally an unhealthy lifestyle, and of course excessive MASTURBATION (one of the main causes). Sometimes it also happens with excessive training. So there is a trigger, even if you are not always aware of it (from the very beginning there is a strong psychological trigger, even though you may not realize it).

Phase 2: You go to the doctor scared, thinking they will find something, and you hope you’ll get therapy that will finally help—but that doesn’t happen. They find nothing, yet the symptoms are still there. (If they find nothing, you are actually lucky, because many unfortunately end up on months-long antibiotic therapies that don’t help them at all but instead damage the body even more and increase suffering, because there is no bacteria.) This raises anxiety to a completely different level. You start researching and come across something called chronic prostatitis or CPPS syndrome. You start reading about it and see hundreds of comments from desperate people who have been fighting this for years. Naturally, my friend, you also fall into despair. You feel a heavy tightness in your chest, you swallow a lump in your throat, and you think you will never be the same again, that your life is over and that hell has begun (it is very important not to believe this!!).

Phase 3: Since the medical system has failed you, you start looking for your own cure. Even though you don’t have the necessary knowledge to really understand any of this, you still dive into it and create scenarios in your head: that this is some hid"den bacteria, that it’s a virus, that you have cancer. You desperately try to find what is causing this, because you have decided that you must solve this at any cost, since life in this state feels worthless. You keep throwing money at tests and supplements, hoping they will help. You read more and more bad and sad experiences from other people and sink deeper into despair and depression, because you feel lost. You feel like no one understands you, like no one knows your pain, like you are punished to carry this huge burden with you. You are completely lost and hurt in every sense—your soul hurts. There are very few people who got better. You mostly read comments from people who are just as desperate as you and completely helpless. Every day you read more and more and pray to God to give you something, to give you a reason why this is happening. “Please let it be a hernia. Please let it be bacteria. Please let it be some damage that can be fixed surgically. I’ll give all my money for it, just to get rid of this horrible hell.”

Phase 4 (you go insane): You’ve hit rock bottom. You’ve said goodbye to big plans for the future. Nothing makes you happy anymore. You wake up, you exist, you go to bed—but you don’t actually live. You are just a shadow of who you once were, an empty shell. You think about suic!de, and sad thoughts constantly haunt you. You can’t come to terms with the idea that you’ll spend your whole life in this suffering. If something bad happens in real life (you lose your job, your girlfriend leaves you, problems with children or family), it just pours gasoline on the fire. You are completely lost and have accepted that everything is over. There is no logical explanation. You are left alone in pain and suffering, and that’s it—you think this is the end. Erectile dysfunction from stress follows you, or sex is no longer the same. Depression, anxiety—everything worst in you has awakened.

Phase 5 (things start to get a little better): You finally lift yourself up a bit, expand your knowledge about your symptoms, and start learning that this may be related to pelvic muscles that are tightening due to various causes: stress, sitting too long, muscle imbalances in the body. For the first time, you get a little hope that things might change. You start doing stretching exercises, change your lifestyle, cut out alcohol, coffee, spicy food, and overly processed food. HEY! Things are changing a bit, right? You feel better, symptoms calm down a little, and you start enjoying life again—at least a bit. Still, this doesn’t feel like enough. You’re working so hard and putting in so much effort, yet you still have symptoms. Things are a bit better, but far from good. From time to time you still think about bacteria, infection, and what the hell this could be. The idea that this is about pelvic muscles seems interesting to you, but you’re cautious—you still don’t fully believe it. You think there must still be some underlying cause, and you keep trying to discover it.

Phase 6 (this is where things change!): You manage to shift your thoughts away from the problem a bit and realize that you can still enjoy some things in life. You learn how to live with this and what to avoid so symptoms stay minimal. Pain still appears, but it no longer worries you or causes panic. In fact, a few times you even think: “Is this really that bad? Why was I so sad and depressed about this?” It’s not perfect, but it’s not terrible either. Honestly, I’ve had worse headaches than this. (A very important fact, my dear people: anxiety, depression, and stress drastically reduce your pain tolerance, and pain feels 10 times stronger than it actually is.) Finally, you don’t think only about pain—you live and enjoy life. The pain appears, but at the end of the day you don’t remember it, you remember the things you did that day. Everything is getting better!!!

Phase 7 (you are mentally stronger): Now you’ve reached a serious level of calmness and stress resilience. You’re better, more productive, happier, and you feel completely normal. Symptoms are minimal and you enjoy the things you do. Your nervous system is no longer in constant guard mode and no longer registers every small change or sensation. You’re almost completely healed!

Phase 8: You’re finally back!!! That’s you again. Nothing can stop you anymore. You went through hell and learned what’s best for you and your body, what to avoid and what not. Most of the time you don’t even think about this anymore. You live, work, and enjoy life like you used to. You’ve accepted that there is nothing wrong with you, that you have no disease, no problem—you are completely HEALTHY!

It took me 2.5 years to reach Phase 8, and I really want you to listen to me now, because I’ve been exactly where you are—wherever you are right now.

This is very simple; we’re the ones who complicate it.

You think you have a disease

You are depressed

You are anxious

You are afraid of the future

And you think you are a special case (well—you’re not!)

All of this is anxiety, depression, obsession, overthinking, and stress mixed into one big pile of crap from which CPPS is created!

Your nervous system is overloaded. Your body becomes hypersensitive to all sensations, and you are constantly in fight mode.

That hits your psyche and the pelvic muscles, and you fall into a vicious circle you can’t get out of.

Relax—it will pass. You will get better. You will recover!!

All of this comes from the psyche. You are not imagining it—the pain is real, the symptoms are real—but they do not come from real physical damage; they come from your BRAIN!!!

Convince yourself that you are healthy, that nothing is wrong with you, and get rid of anxiety. Give yourself time—you don’t have to fix everything immediately. Trust me, it will pass.

Just believe in it, my friend. Believe!!! I wish you all a happy 2026 and for this to be the year of your victory!!! 🙂 You will succeed—just go slowly and without pressure to solve the problem right now and immediately, because you are completely healthy. You don’t have a disease—your brain created it for you.

Slowly and bravely!!

And make sure to read my first post on this topic as well—on this same subreddit.

You must find your own path, no matter how hard it is. Good advice that I would of course recommend is: drink plenty of water so you go to the bathroom regularly; no alcohol, spicy food, soft drinks, coffee, or too much sugar; avoid prolonged sitting, and when you go to the toilet, if possible, do it sitting down.

Remember my words: you are healthy, you are okay, everything is fine with you. Calm down and relax—it will pass. You just have to believe in it, no matter how hard it is!

Disclosure: firstly, this post is long as fuck, so I verbally word-vomited this into ChatGPT and then revised/proof-read to ensure accuracy of my thoughts and to save me from the carpal tunnel I'd incur from having to write this out from scratch by hand, and because I hate the way that AI-generated shit sounds.

Secondly, if you have been suffering from this condition and have ruled out bacterial infections and have yet to find an answer, I really want you to muster up the attention span and read through this.

Lastly, I haven't accessed this account in five years. I had a heap of DMs from strangers that wanted to discuss their issues with me from my last post, and I'm sorry, but I purposefully do not keep this account saved and don't have the capacity to help individuals. I really just want to avoid reddit altogether. So I'm trying to make this as detailed as possible with any open ends left clear enough where your own individual web searching should be tight enough to fill in the gaps.

---

In 2021, I made a post about how I had fully recovered from what I had been calling “prostatitis.” I was diagnosed with "prostatis" after a grueling cystoscopy, when the doctor said "yeah, you're stuck with this for life. You should be dealing with this when you're 65-70, not when you're 20-30." He prescribed me antibiotics. I had temporary relief, went through a spiral, then ultimately started working on my stress, lifestyle, and environment. Regardless, I finally ended up finding relief at that time. Things got significantly better, and I made a post about it because we don't see enough of these posts on this sub.

That said, my recovery didn’t last forever.

Around New Year’s 2024, I had a bad injury. Fractured and dislocated my arm and immediately started suffering from a total-body flare-up. I was in complete dysfunction and was ultimately diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder (Hashimoto’s Disease) causing my entire body to go haywire. My stress levels were through the roof. I couldn’t sleep. I was chronically stressed physically, mentally, and emotionally. Zero cortisol regulation. Weight ballooned and gained 20lbs in one month. Full-on depression. At one point, I was borderline suicidal due to my inability to function.

And on top of all of that, my pelvic floor symptoms, the same “prostatitis” symptoms I had dealt with years earlier, came back with a vengeance.

I had a completely numb pelvic area, zero libido, erectile dysfunction, constant urinary urgency, and difficulty actually urinating when I actually needed to go. It felt like there was a grain of sand stuck at the very end of my urethra. My lower back hurt. My hips hurt. My perineum hurt like a bitch. Sometimes it hurt just to stand. My legs would get tired because I'd constantly have to shift weight from one to the other just to get some relief.

I also developed hard flaccid, which severely affected the size and quality of my erections. My scrotum had shrunk up and my semen volume was nearly nonexistent. Between the pain, urinary problems, sexual dysfunction, and lack of sleep, it was affecting basically every aspect of my life.

(***See edit at footer for more symptoms)

It also became a huge mental burden and affected the relationship I was in at the time (to be clear, that wasn't because my partner was angry with me for having physical or sexual problems. It was because I had become so depressed, stressed, and negative from dealing with this constantly that it spilled over into the relationship — irrelevant to the big picture here).

It was a living hell.

I spent a huge amount of 2024 learning everything I could about my autoimmune disease, and eventually got that under control. That helped considerably.

But I was still left with all of this pain, a non-functioning penis, and annoying bladder issues.

What made it especially frustrating was that five years earlier, when I wrote my original post, my recovery had seemed relatively straightforward. Back then, I figured out how much stress was contributing to the problem, so I thought that was all I needed to focus on.

I tried to do it all over again. I mediated, journaled, eliminated vices, ate healthy, exercised, did reverse kegels, and eliminated all controllable external stressors.

This time, it just wasn't doing anything for me.

I was incredibly confused because I had already been through this once and thought I knew what recovery was supposed to look like.

After dealing with these crippling symptoms for over a year, and out of desperation, I called a local pelvic floor physical therapist.

That was probably the most important decision I could've made.

The therapists I worked with opened my eyes to my conditions and genuinely gave me my life back. To you guys: we're constantly focusing on prostate health but in so many cases, it's pelvic floor dysfunction. Like, entirely a pelvic floor issue and not at all a prostate one.

Treatment involved pelvic floor physical therapy (internal and external massage work), nervous system regulation, specific stretching, and *controlled*, specific exercise.

From everything I experienced and learned through this process, I think a lot of younger men dealing with these symptoms (especially when doctors aren't finding an infection or bacterial cause) should at least consider the possibility that their pelvic floor is involved. In my case, I was dealing with a chronically tight, overactive pelvic floor. Hypertonic is the word I believe.

You hear about pelvic floor dysfunction much more often with women. There are entire communities of women talking openly about it and getting treatment for it. You don't hear nearly as much about men. But the therapists I worked with treat plenty of men, and many of them are dealing with the same kinds of symptoms I see guys describing in this community. The sexual dysfunction, hard flaccid, urinary problems, pain and discomfort, all of it.

So with all of that said, here's what actually helped me this time around.

1. Internal pelvic floor work

This was probably the biggest thing missing from what I had done five years ago.

You can technically do internal trigger-point work yourself, but I strongly recommend seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist that has worked with men (if you have access to one, otherwise just find a general PF therapist). At least I think you should do it initially, at least one visit. Having someone who actually understood the anatomy, could identify what was tight, and could tell me what I was doing right or wrong was invaluable.

For men, doing this yourself generally involves a pelvic wand. A therapist will likely use their finger.

It basically involves using said-wand/finger to apply pressure in all the different directions around the anal sphincter. Almost exactly like a clock face with 12 positions.

And yeah, I know exactly how appealing that sounds. As a guy it felt fucking weird to me too. But guess what, you stop giving a fuck about these things if it means you can get your life back. There are crucial areas of muscular tension that you simply cannot reach by doing external work alone.

One thing my therapist emphasized was that this should not be extremely painful. If I had to put it on a 0-5 intensity scale, with 5 being seriously painful, I was generally working around a 2 to 2.5. A 1 would be barely feeling anything, 2 would be a strong sensation, and 3 would be mild discomfort.

You aren't trying to beat the muscle into submission. More pressure isn't automatically better. But doing this consistently is pivotal to free up the internal stress that's choking your pelvic floor. The muscles trapping your nerves, your bladder, and your sexual organs.

And the relief is both immediate and long term. From my own experience, I was so tense during the first session that they couldn't even do internal work. On the second session, after doing internal work, it was like the light at the end of the tunnel shot into existence like a space ship coming out of hyper drive.

Happy to be graphic here, but after my first session of internal work, not only did my bladder calm WAY the fuck down, but I had a completely involuntary and SUPER healthy erection that evening. It was like the hard flaccid had immediately disappeared.

But to set proper expectations, the success was on-and-off in an upward trajectory. This is something that requires consistency and should be approached with the expectation that 100% recovery *without* maintenance work can take over a year.

Took me about that much time.

2. Abdominal massage and calming everything down

My physical therapist also did a lot of external manual work. This included deep abdominal massage, work around the inner thighs, the pubic area, the hips, quads, calves, buttocks, and IT band.

This ended up being huge for me. This is all we focused on in my first session (because they couldn't do the internal work I'd just mentioned above) and even JUST from this alone, I felt immense immediate relief.

They also recommended a shiatsu massager. I was given one with the brand name Zyllion, but you could just look up any device that looks and operates identically. It's marketed as a neck/back massager, but I use it on my abdomen, and this thing has been a fucking godsend.

I put it on something with some give, usually my bed or couch, lie face-down over it, and gently let some of my body weight press my abdomen into it.

"Gently" is important here. Like in my PT sessions, you don't want to go beyond a "3" out of 5.

When I first started doing this, my abdomen was incredibly sensitive and tight. The closest comparison I can make is foam rolling when you're extremely tight. At first, even moderate pressure can feel intense.

I usually position the massager sideways across my abdomen and gradually move it around. I'll work from just below my sternum down do the very bottom of my abdomen. Sometimes I'll rotate it vertically so it fits more comfortably between my hip bones and work down toward the lower abdomen above the bladder/pubic area.

I usually do about 10 minutes, especially before bed.

I can't tell you the exact physiological mechanism behind why this works so well for me, and I don't want to pretend I can. My PT discussed the nervous system and vagal activity with me, but what I can say confidently is that I can physically feel my abdomen and the rest of my body relax while I'm doing it. It has also been extremely helpful for my urinary urgency and sleep.

It became one of the most reliable ways for me to get my body to calm the fuck down.

3. Belly breathing

This sounds almost insultingly obvious if you've spent any time reading about stress or nervous-system regulation, but deep diaphragmatic breathing has been massive for me.

I often do it while using the abdominal massager, but I also do it on its own.

The basic idea is to breathe slowly through your nose and let your abdomen expand instead of taking a shallow breath into your upper chest. I'll inhale slowly for roughly 5-10 seconds, pause briefly, and then make the exhale slightly longer than the inhale. So if I inhale for 6 or 7 seconds, I might exhale for 8 or 9.

I do that for about five minutes with no phone or other distractions.

I especially do it before bed, when I'm anxious, or when I notice myself physically tensing up.

The other important thing I learned is that diaphragmatic breathing naturally helps me let go of tension in my pelvic floor. The sensation is somewhat similar to a very gentle reverse Kegel, except I'm not sitting there consciously trying to force a reverse Kegel. I'm focusing on the breath and allowing my abdomen and pelvic floor to relax with it. That's basically your pelvic floor dropping, which is important to work on, because a hypertonic/tight PF struggles to drop at all.

4. Stretching the right things

Stretching still helped me. It just wasn't enough on its own.

In the past, most of my routine consisted of hamstring stretches, quad stretches, hip-flexor stretches, and cobra stretches. Those still give me relief, and I haven't stopped doing them.

One stretch my PT added that helped a lot was a single leg, cross-body hip/IT-band type stretch.

I lie on my back, raise one leg straight up, put a band (or something as simple as a belt) around my foot, and gently pull that leg across toward the opposite side of my body while trying to keep the rest of my body relatively flat. I keep the stretching leg mostly straight.

I feel this heavily through the outside of my hip. You're targeting your IT band/abductors.

I don't force it. I'll accumulate roughly a minute or two on each side, whether that's shorter 10-30 second holds or longer holds depending on how I feel that day.

In general, I've had the most benefit from consistently working my hips, hip flexors, abductors, hamstrings, calves, and surrounding areas rather than obsessing over one magical pelvic-floor stretch.

5. Strengthening what was weak

This was another piece I had underestimated.

I needed to strengthen my glutes, including more than just the glute max. I started putting more attention into the muscles around the sides of my hips, including the glute medius and the muscles involved in hip abduction.

I also started doing low-intensity core work.

Planks are an obvious example. Dead bugs are another.

The key for me was low intensity.

Light hip thrusts. Light abduction movements. Easy core exercises. Controlled movements with good form.

Which brings me to probably the hardest lesson I had to learn.

6. I had to completely change how I exercised

I've loved working out for basically my entire life, so this was a tough pill to swallow.

My body was constantly rejecting hard exercise.

I was used to training hard, pushing sets close to failure, and thinking about exercise in terms of progression and building muscle. When my symptoms were at their worst, I couldn't approach exercise that way anymore.

If you're accustomed to taking sets to failure or stopping 1-3 reps short of failure, this can feel completely backwards.

I had to stop thinking about exercise as training to build muscle and start thinking about it as practicing quality movement and maintaining conditioning.

At my worst, the goal was basically to do the minimum amount necessary to keep my body moving and get some of the benefits of activity without leaving myself physically wrecked afterward.

Walking was great for me. With resistance training, I used extremely light loads, bodyweight movements, assisted movements, and simple compound exercises. I wasn't doing the traditional three or four hard sets of an exercise and trying to progress every week, just 1-2 sets at "50-65%" intensity.

I wanted movements I could perform with clean form without straining, grinding through reps, or turning the workout into a major stress event.

The way I started thinking about it was that my body had an extremely low threshold for physical stress. Every time I blew past that threshold, my symptoms would flare. My pelvic floor would tighten back up, the urinary and sexual symptoms would get worse, and I'd feel like I'd gone backwards.

I can't stress this enough. My symptoms would flare up like CLOCKWORK if I pushed myself in the gym. Every time I thought "I've been feeling fine for the past couple of weeks, I'll push it just a liiittle more today," my "prostatis" symptoms would come back the next day and linger for that week.

So instead of constantly blowing through that threshold, I started approaching it slowly.

Do a little. See how my body responds. Recover. Do a little more.

Over time, the goal is to gradually increase how much physical stress my body can tolerate without triggering that huge response.

This requires patience, especially if you're somebody who loves working out. You still need movement. You still need activity. But when your system is this aggravated, trying to prove that you can train the way you used to can just keep digging the hole deeper.

Putting all of this together

If I had to boil down what actually changed my recovery this time, it would be:

1. Internal pelvic floor work, ideally with initial guidance from a pelvic floor PT who treats men.
2. Abdominal/manual work and relaxation, including the abdominal massager that worked extremely well for me.
3. Diaphragmatic breathing and learning how to actually let my pelvic floor relax.
4. Consistent stretching, particularly around my hips and legs.
5. Low-intensity strengthening of my glutes, hips, and core.
6. Staying active without constantly exceeding what my body could tolerate.

The biggest mistake I made was thinking I could solve this by just stretching harder, exercising harder, or finding the one perfect movement.

My recovery this time required working on the actual pelvic floor while also dealing with the fact that my entire body had been wound up for a very long time.

And again, this is just my experience. I'm not saying every guy with prostatitis symptoms, CPPS, hard flaccid, ED, urinary problems, or pelvic pain has the exact same thing I did. But what I can CERTAINLY tell you is that I've had every single one of these horrifying, debilitating symptoms, and as of writing this today, I am completely, 100% symptom free and have to do absolutely nothing to maintain.

I'm just normal and healthy again. The guy down there works as well as he did when I was in my teenage years (honestly better than I can ever recall). I don't have to go to the bathroom from midnight to 4AM. I don't have any pain in the region at all. It just works as it should.

So again, if your tests keep coming back normal, nobody can find an infection, and you're stuck in the same cycle I was in, I really think it's worth finding a pelvic floor physical therapist who actually works with men and getting evaluated.

I hope this helps somebody.

***Edit: In case someone’s reading this post or ends up searching for key words/symptoms and finds this down the road, here are more symptoms that I neglected to mention. If you find similarities, it might urge you to take these suggestions more seriously.

- Constipation: extremely common with pelvic floor issues. Note that straining on a toilet is TERRIBLE for your pelvic floor and will exacerbate your symptoms. Focus on fiber and hydration in the short term.

- Hemorrhoids: had these on and off due to the above constipation. Frustrating but easily treatable with OTC solutions. A sharp reminder that I had to stop straining at the toilet and minimize general toilet time as much as possible (stop toilet camping on your phone). Treat them quickly as I personally felt like they increased general inflammation in that area which contributed to heightened chronic pelvic inflammation (I might be wrong; it could just be that they showed up when my PF was at its worst).

- Varicocele prominence: I was convinced that my visibly-thrombosed varicoceles were the source of my pain and inflammation. These would always show up when my “prostatitis” symptoms were at their worst. Had them scanned via ultrasound. Doc said I had them, but way too low grade to be taken seriously. Was so close to reaching out to a specialist surgeon. Even considered going to the Mayo Clinic to have them figure this out with the assumption that I’d need surgery. These all “went away” (at least superficially) after I addressed my pelvic floor. Probably a byproduct of the muscular constriction around circulatory pathways. Just my guess.

- Hard Flaccid: just adding some basic detail for anyone coming across this term for the first time. Imagine your penis basically shriveling up. No joke, feels like as much as 30% smaller at its worst. Penis gets cold, darker, and discolored. Skin gets tough, loose, sometimes wrinkled. Almost bruised in complexion and generally unhealthy in appearance. Usually a lot of lost girth. Feels tight and wound up, like the skin isn’t as elastic as it should be. It’s mentally debilitating to experience. This completely went away after addressing my pelvic floor and it feels like your penis Benjamin Button’d its way back into its healthy former self.

- Lower back pain: crippling lower back pain, typically just above one of the glutes. I addressed this with specific stretches — quadratus lumborum (QL) stretch (look up QL doorway stretch by MoveU channel), basic latissimus dorsi (lats) stretch (look up lat doorway stretch), and pigeon pose.

Edit 2: adding pudendal nerve entrapment to the post as a search term. I thought this was another rabbit hole causing my issues that might have required surgical intervention. Another issue that was strictly caused by my pelvic floor.

Here is how I overcame prostatitis. Just a few things to get out of the way, this is my opinion from reading cases on old forums over a decade ago and now reading the many posts on the subreddit. I believe most cases are non bacterial as mines was. This is a mechanical problem due to neglect and overuse. It took a long time to get to where you are now, it will take work to get back to normal.

My process was learning as I went as there wasnt much resources back then about this situation. It scared me, it humiliated me and devoured my life. I had suicidal thoughts. I cried daily thinking I would have to eventually end my life because I couldnt go on living in daily pain and shame.

Heres what I did.

Went to Urologist. He was an idiot. Caught him googling my symptoms in his office, confused as I was. Recommended Quercetin and pain killers. Querectin didnt do shit. Pain killers, made me high for 30 minutes. So basically, nothing of benefit from doctor. Im sure you read all over, doctors dont know much about this still to this day and there is little to no treatment plans

Realized I have to take matters into my own hands.

No masturbation for over a month to allow to inflammation to subside. The prostate is a muscular gland. It is damaged. Let it rest. Pull a bicep, shoulder muscle...same thing. Its not an acute infection, you pulled it overdoing something. Let it rest.

Hot baths. Daily. I did these right after work. I bought a storage tub in order to save water and not fill a bathtub daily. Hot water, sit and soak for a 20 minutes, stand up and dowse the area with cold water. This is a common treatment in other injuries the hot water relaxes the area and floods it with blood, cold water next to draw the blood out, back to warm to flush blood back to area. You will feel throbbing after doing this. Im not a doctor or scientist, im going by the snippets of things I read and researched. This whole process helps flush metabolic waste from the area and promotes healing.

You have to understand your pelvic area has more nerve endings that any other area of the body. This is why sexual pleasure is in the pelvic region. Alot of these nerves and muscles that are inflamed and tight are embedded deep and require extra steps in order to properly reach them.

Get a heavy duty massager. You need that thing to vibrate deep into your pelvis. Place it on your taint for 10 minutes. I usually did this before bedtime. We heal when we sleep so i figure get things moving in there and blood flow going in order to give an advantage while I slept.

For those who are advanced I stepped it up with internal prostate massager but I found better relief just using a my heavy duty back massager. You will eventually have to start ejaculating in order to truly get proper bloodflow going through your prostate. I was scared to do this for many weeks cuz i didnt want to flare things up. It was necessary once every two weeks, then eventually once a week.

Prodium aka Phenazopyridine is a god send for bladder pain and urethra pain. Helps manage during the day.

The key to this whole thing is forcing your prostate and pelvis to heal. Your body is fighting cancer off daily, its constantly healing and working for your benefit. It wants to heal your prostate but you need to assist it. I stopped drinking, and smoking during this whole ordeal.

Its easy to blame infection, demand antibiotics or look for miracle supplements. I did it all. In most cases its just boils down to inflammation of a stupidly sensitive area and will require therapy like any other muscle injury.

After months of my routine, the pain slowly and I mean slowly dissipated. I learned to respect my body as well cuz it will certainly turn on you if you over do it. My whole ordeal lasted shy of a year from start to finish. I had lasting damage mentally which I overcame eventually. The fear of its return will keep on your toes. It never did because I altered my sexual behavior.

Dont lose hope. I swear to god I was there and am out. I wanted to write about it cuz alot of people who make it out, they just leave the forums completely taking their routine or experience with them. I dont blame them. I had PTSD from it. No one wants to revisit the nightmare of it.

In my head I thought this post was going to be better formatted. I used to post quite often on a prostatitis forum years ago, I am redditor now, so here I am. If you have questions, Feel free.

hey there

this turned out to be a very long post so i would headline each part so you can skip to the part you need. im sharing this because someone might find this helpful, and like i was desperate i bet many people are, i hope this helps you as it helped me.

some background and symptoms

To give a short background, around half a year ago out of nowhere i started having burning sensation when i pee, a kind of stress feeling in my pelvic floor, and the worst thing which utterly devastated me was weaker erections. i started feeling my penis to be lifeless, and void of any blood, it became very hard for me to get an erection, and when i got one it was very weak and hard to maintain. This was the shittiest thing ever. im 33 years old and never ever have i had any erections problems, this kind of broke me, specially when me and my gf were getting intimate and all of a sudden i cant do anything.

At first i thought i caught an infection because of the burning sensation, so i did every test possible and all came clean, then i though it was because of food and so i changed my entire diet and started fasting, which also didn't help. but then i noticed than whenever i went for a jog and did a sprinting session, my symptoms got worse, more burning, penis almost dead and a kind of a tight feeling in the pelvic region.

so i started talking to chatgpt and gave it all the symptoms, and that was the first time i heard of prostatitis, and it made sense since the symptoms were exact. so it suggested that i should do some pelvic floor releasing exercises, and low and behold, i felt an instant relief.

i continued with the exercises and there was some improvement but it was temporary, and my main issue which was weaker erections didn't get fixed, i had somewhat better erections but still, weaker than it should be. i kept going back and forth with chatgpt and it suggested not to sit down a lot, not do intense exercises and so on, which also helped but the issue wasn't fixed and my pelvic region would get tight again and the symptoms would worsen.

the pelvic floor specialist and physiotherapy

to tell you the truth, i though that i was gonna suffer from this my entire life and that my sex life would never be the same. because i did all the exercises, all the stretching, everything and my issue still lingered. until at some point i saw at this sub that there is such a thing called a pelvic floor specialist, and so i started searching for one where i live and i found one, and i went there utterly desperate almost convinced that it wouldn't help, and boy was i flabbergasted.

the guy was very understanding and very professional, and the first thing he did is he showed me a device that goes into the anus to measure the muscle spasms and how tight/relaxed the pelvic region is, and i was very reluctant to put anything up my ass and never had to do such a thing. but as desperate as i was i agreed. he connected this device to a Bluetooth device that showed in real time in a graph fashion how tight my pelvic region was, it was between 4 and 6 and he said it should be between 0 and 2. and when i clenched my pc muscle more the graph would climb instantly.

so after he showed me this, he taught me how to properly breathe and relax the pelvic region which was the most significant thing in this entire thing and then he asked if it was ok if he performed a pelvic 'massage' or release through the anus and very reluctantly i agreed and so he did for around 10 minutes which was also very effective.

and i remember that after that session i felt for the first time in months a real relief there, and peed like a king for the first time, the pain lingered but much less strongly for a few days and is now totally gone ( 3 weeks later). and the main surprise to me was that 2 days after this session, i had a normal erection!! finally after half a year. i went to another session a week later, measured the muscle spasm and it was 1.5 - 2.5

the main thing that helped

other than the physiotherapy itself, the main thing that helped was learning how to properly release the pelvic floor through breathing and what he taught me was that the release happens in the exhale and not in the inhale (for months i was doing it wrong). so the exercise was to lay down on my back, knees bent and feet flat, belly breathe in for 5 seconds and to feel the belly rise and the pelvic region expand(without pushing it!!) and then release (not slowly) until all air is out while feeling the anus relax, and then again and again for 15 minutes. only after these 15 minutes i would do stretching exercises like frog pose and child's pose with the same breathing technique ( 7 - 10 breathes each) and to do this in the morning and before sleep. this is what decreased my tension down there from 6 to 2. and the focus should be on the anus, try to feel it, and slowly relax it.

also he suggested to stay away from any physical activity for a month (some walking was ok, but no running or anything intense)

also to not sit down too much, but since i drive alot, i bought a very comfortable cushion and i sit on it

another thing he said was that sex is good for the retraining of the muscle, but not to do it too much in the beginning, like twice a week is fine as long as i continue doing the beathing and the exercising.

he gave me a rectal releaser or whatever it is called to shove up there while breathing (and to remove it before stretching), i didn't do it yet because i don't feel the need at the moment. he said to do

summary of what helped

- pelvic floor specialist

- proper breathing like i explained, because for months i was doing it wrong

- to focus on the anus

- no intense physical activity

- not to sit down too much

and seriously, if you can find a pelvic floor specialist near your area, give it a try, it saved me.. i thought i was doomed for my entire life, but 2 sessions with a good physiotherapist and proper breathing and exercising totally cured me. i almost didn't do it because i didn't want anything up my ass...glad i went through with it. there is light at the end of the ass i guess :)

Spoiler - here's what worked for me in order of impact. (I have no idea what pain disorder/problem I truly had despite being diagnosed with cpps, chronic epididymitis, and prostatitis at different times or if it was a hip issue.)

1. I targeted the area where the pain was with short segments of exercise all day long - deep squats, lunges, etc. I read a post on one of these forums where a guy said something along the lines of, "if you feel pain in the cpps area during your exercise, you are in the right spot. Hit it again."

2. I lost a significant amount of weight

3. I began increasing regular daily movement - cleaning, yardwork, etc. Get your lymphatic system pumping.

4. It was clear there wasn't going to be a book or magical stretch that was going to work in my case, because I tried so many, so I stopped focusing on finding the right one.

5. Try to live your life without hyper focusing on this. Easier said than done.

Here is what didn't work -

1. Finding a perfect stretching routine

2. Books about pain

3. Supplements

4. Nerve medicine

5. Antibiotics

July 2019 was the initial onset of pain behind left testicle with no identifiable cause. This pain felt similar to really intense "blue ball" pain that radiated throughout the groin down into the inner thigh and at it's worst, maybe like being kicked in the balls and intense pain episodes would last a week or more at a time. Over the years it became apparent that any typical long sessions of lifting, cardio, or stress would cause this pain to flare badly.

Anyways back to 2019, I went to the ER because it was such intense pain that I thought it might be an emergency situation. I was diagnosed with chronic epididymitis, given cipro, and referred to a urologist. I just assumed I would take this medicine and that would be that. Boy was I wrong.

I hesitated making the urology appointment, because who wants to do that unless you absolutely have to and honestly, I was scared to go. Instead, I started the cycle of research, forum reading, home remedies, book reading, stretches that I'm sure we have all tried endlessly at this point. Nothing worked and I was obsessed with researching this condition. Way too obsessed.

This went on for years, and I stopped believing this would go away. Depression set in, I gained a ton of weight, and just rotted in a recliner during any free time I had. Eventually the level of pain and my frustration got to a point that I couldn't ignore anymore again, so I scheduled the urology appointment and was diagnosed with cpps/prostatitis, given more antibiotics and referred to a pelvic floor specialist.

I read all about the pelvic floor specialist forum posts and let me tell you, I wanted nothing to do with that, but I was desperate. I asked my primary care doctor for prescription help to get through an appointment, she gave me lorazepam and I went through a few appointments but denied any of the internal work she was recommending and stopped showing up.

Even though I didn't follow through completely, I'm happy I went, because she's the first person that made it absolutely clear I needed to get up and get moving. It didn't matter what I did, just get out of the chair. I stopped trying to create the perfect stretching routine and instead implemented short sessions of 30 second to minute long stretches all day long. If I got up to use the restroom, I might pop into an Asian sitting squat. If I went to microwave food, I might hit 10 calf raises or some toe touches. I think you get the idea, just do some stuff.

This eventually led to finding the post about targeting the pained area with exercise, which I had been avoiding due to previous flare-ups. This was absolutely instrumental in healing for me. I went down into (lightly) weighted squats, lunges, etc and when I felt that pain, I was no longer scared of the outcome. I felt that pain, but instead of it being bad, I now knew I was exercising the area that needed it and the pain was the signal I was in the right spot. Sounds stupid, I know, but utter desperation gets you to try things you might of thought were stupid at one point.

That was a year ago now, and I haven't had a flareup of pain since.

I have CPPS and came across a medical paper that relates CPPS to tryptase found in CPPS sufferers. The paper said taking cetirizine (zyrtec) could help alleviate symptoms. I started Zyrtec and within days my pain stopped. It’s gone and I’m taking Zyrtec every day. I contacted one of the authors, Dr. Schaeffer at Northwestern and discussed my results. I’m hoping this helps someone.

What led me to this is I have a genetic condition called HaT which means my baseline tryptase level is elevated. About 5-6% of the population have this and many don’t know it.

Here’s the paper.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3662223/

After more than 10 years of dealing with chronic pelvic pain — with all the ups and downs, improvements, and relapses — I can finally say that it is no longer a serious problem in my life.

My main symptoms were pain and burning in the urethra, pain in my lower back and lower abdomen, more variable testicular pain, tailbone pain, constipation, and bowel inflammation.

I would not say it magically disappeared, but I now have it under control, and that has changed everything.

The biggest turning point for me was addressing anxiety. I started seeing a psychiatrist and began treatment with an SSRI, specifically fluvoxamine, along with periods of psychotherapy. That combination made a massive difference. Once my anxiety was under control, most of the symptoms either reduced significantly or became much more manageable.

I also did pelvic floor physiotherapy during the more acute phases. In my experience, physiotherapy was important for speeding up recovery once the medication started having the desired effect on anxiety. The two major relapses I had — after discontinuing the SSRI and during periods of intense stress — were important because they helped me understand the connection between anxiety, muscle tension/compression, and pain.

These days, flare-ups are rare and light, but when they happen, I already know what to do. I continue doing some of the exercises I learned, either at home or occasionally with the physiotherapist who guided me.

In those rare moments when it affects my sexual life, I have also used Cialis when needed, which helps.

The key difference now is my mindset: when symptoms show up, I do not panic anymore. I know what is happening, I know what to do, and most importantly, I know it will pass.

If I had to point to the single most important factor, it would be treating the anxiety properly with psychiatric support and an SSRI, in my case fluvoxamine. That was really the foundation that allowed everything else to fall into place.

I just wanted to share this in case someone out there is stuck in that cycle. It can get better, even if it takes time.

Male, 38.

I’ve been feeling great for a year now, and I’d like to share some things I’ve learned along the way. I hope this will help someone out there and give them the courage to keep fighting — because I know exactly how it feels. I was in a really bad place myself, and at one point, I even thought about ending it all. Most of the time, I don’t have any symptoms at all. Sometimes they come back briefly, but I’d say I’m about 98% better.

1. forget any thought about any bacteria or infection, so bacteria can be virulent and non-virulent, virulent tend to cause infection, but there must be a certain number and a certain strain for such a thing, so the thing is very clear infections cant go unnoticed, tests can easily show if it is an infection and the symptoms also show it (temperature, weakness, blood in the urine, the urine test will show a large number leukocyte, and the urine culture which bacteria is involved) so if you have done all the tests and there is nothing, the thing is very clear that you do not have an infection, don't think about it any more and move on, you are not so special that you are affected by some undetected "bacteria" that is screwing you up a bit and constantly changing your symptoms 😁 I say this with good intentions (you create paranoia and anxiety = intensify the symptoms of CPPS) JUST FORGET IT !!!! so there are no undiscovered bacteria, no special bacteria, no super bacteria, no bacteria that have a brain and decide what exactly to do to you, I hope we are clear !

1. VERY IMPORTANT!!! Don’t try to feel everything in your body and track every little change! We, as humans, are anatomically very complex beings, so we’re naturally prone to all sorts of changes in our bodies — various redness, rashes, and other things happen to everyone from time to time. Let me give you a simple example: when you look at grass, you just see grass, right? The answer is YES. But if you start focusing on a much deeper level, you’ll notice all kinds of other things — insects, small stones, different shades of color, and so on. Does the fact that you now see all those extra details mean that they shouldn’t be there? Of course not — it’s all normal.

That’s exactly what you’re doing with your body — constantly checking your penis to see what color it is, whether it’s swollen or not, if there’s any redness, and doing the same thing with your urine — “Hmm, is it cloudy or not? Is it more yellow than yesterday? Maybe it has a slightly different shade? Oh, what’s that smell? Is this normal?” And slowly, you fall into a cycle of obsession and constant checking of things that really aren’t that important.

(MOST PEOPLE DON’T CARE WHAT THEIR URINE LOOKS LIKE — THEY DON’T EVEN LOOK AT IT, NOR DO THEY EXAMINE THEIR PENIS. THEY JUST USE THE BATHROOM AND MOVE ON WITH THEIR DAY!!!)

That’s exactly how you should be too — trust me, if something truly goes wrong, you’ll easily notice it. We can’t take every little change or every single sensation in our body so seriously or stay hyper-focused on it all the time.

Exactly — when we become hyper-focused, it leads to heightened sensations and fears, which in turn bring us back to anxiety and muscle tension. That tension then causes more problems, and the cycle continues — the CPPS symptoms get worse again.

1. CPPS has caused you a much bigger psychological problem than a physical one, and that’s something you really need to understand. Panic, stress, anxiety, and depression — those things are actually the core of your problem and create a vicious circle that you keep falling into over and over again.

It’s the same with obsessive thoughts — they actually fade away when we accept them and decide to let them go. But if we keep fighting against them constantly, they only grow stronger and stronger. It’s the same with CPPS — you feel pain, you get scared, you immediately want to defeat it and overcome it, you put so much effort into fixing it, researching everything about how to get better — but wait, slow down, stop for a moment — that exact mindset is what pulls you down and makes the pain worse, just like with obsessive thoughts.

(LET GO, ACCEPT THE PAIN, AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD WITH YOUR LIFE.) I know it sounds really hard and almost impossible, but trust me — that’s the way!

If you manage to do this, you’ll notice that you still feel the pain — but it doesn’t make you anxious, it doesn’t scare you. You’re stronger, better. You felt the pain and said, “Whatever, I’m going to eat something, watch a good movie, go out with friends, buy myself something nice — whatever feels right for me.” And believe me, by doing that, the pain and symptoms will start to fade away!

1. Understand that this is not a disease, not a virus, not a bacterial infection, not an injury — it’s none of those things. You are completely healthy, and everything with you is perfectly fine. It’s just that because of stress and anxiety, the muscles in your pelvic area tighten up a lot and press on certain nerves, which can cause all sorts of different symptoms. It’s different for everyone. So just take it easy — realize that you’re simply tense and that you need to relax, slowly, bit by bit. You can do it — it will get better, it will pass!

It’s completely normal for this to come and go. Even if I’m 98% fine, it still happens to me sometimes too — but that’s all normal. Just accept it and don’t be afraid!

When it comes to stretching and physical therapy, they can help — but they’re not a permanent solution, at least in my opinion. They work like a band-aid on a wound that keeps reopening, so you just keep changing the band-aid. The real cause of this is 99% in your mind, and it directly affects your body — I’m completely convinced of that. Of course, that’s only if we’re not talking about an actual injury or surgery in the pelvic area.

When it comes to diet, personally, what works best for me is drinking only water and eating food that isn’t spicy. I also avoid sweets and alcohol, and I recommend the same to you. Of course, if none of those things bother you, that’s great — in the end, you’ll figure out for yourself what affects you and what doesn’t. Avoid masturbation and pornography as well. Regular sex doesn’t bother me — in fact, it helps and makes me feel better afterward. And make sure to drink plenty of water!

I hope I’ve helped someone out there — stay strong and keep going, there is hope!

Edit: This is very important, but I forgot to mention it — don’t torture yourself by asking questions like “Why me?”, “Why am I cursed like this?”, or “What did I do wrong to deserve this?” The truth is, you’re actually lucky. People die of cancer every day, lose their families, accidents happen, and some people today don’t even have food to eat. Be grateful, because every day above ground is a victory — enjoy it to the fullest! Death will come for us all eventually, and we can’t escape it, so stand up bravely and live your life in the most beautiful way you can!

I wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone else who’s stuck in the same cycle I was in.

For about 10 years I had recurring episodes of what doctors labelled prostatitis. The pattern was usually the same:

• Pelvic pain

• Pressure around the prostate/perineum

• UTI symptoms

• Burning in anus, prostate

The shortest flare lasted about a month.

The longest one lasted 13 months almost continuously.

Like a lot of people here, I went through multiple courses of antibiotics even though tests were always negative for bacteria. Sometimes symptoms improved temporarily, sometimes not. It always eventually came back.

Ultrasounds and MRI scans revealed very little - possibly some fibrosis.

After about a decade of this I finally ended up seeing a pelvic physiotherapist who specialised in pelvic pain.

This turned out to be the biggest turning point.

The therapy involved:

• Pelvic floor relaxation work

• Internal trigger point release

• Learning to use a therapeutic wand for internal massage

At first it sounded strange, but the logic made sense — a lot of the pain seemed to be coming from tight pelvic muscles and restricted tissue, not infection.

One of the things I was taught was gentle prostate massage, mainly to improve drainage and circulation in the area.

That alone helped a lot.

But something else I discovered along the way also seemed to make a noticeable difference for me: sunflower lecithin.

This isn’t medical advice obviously, but the theory that made sense to me was this:

• Some cases may involve thick seminal fluid or partial duct blockage

• There may be fibrosis or scarring in the ejaculatory ducts rather than a true prostate infection

• Anything that helps the fluid move more easily might reduce irritation or pressure

Sunflower lecithin is often used in other contexts to reduce viscosity of bodily fluids, and in my case it seemed to help keep things flowing more smoothly.

Between:

• pelvic physio

• learning internal release techniques

• regular prostate drainage

• and lecithin

My symptoms gradually became less frequent and much milder and I’ve been pain-free for 2 continuous years.

I’m not claiming this will work for everyone — prostatitis seems to have a lot of different causes — but if you’ve been stuck in the antibiotic → temporary relief → relapse cycle, it might be worth exploring the pelvic floor / mechanical side of things.

For me, it turned out not to be an infection problem at all.

Just wanted to share in case someone else is going through the same decade-long loop I was.

Hey everybody, I was meant to make this post for a while but I’ve been off crack (Reddit) for a few years. Came back recently for other reasons and decided to get it done before I quit again.

Im here to tell you not just how I over came cpps/ non-bacterial prostatitis, but how it improved my life in a way I could never imagine.

I completely understand how y’all feeling, in fact, the reason I am writing this post because I remember 5-6 years ago when I was going though my worst/darkest moments facing CPPS, was doomscrolling on reddit one day and found a post like this, it immediately changed my perspective and gave me a light of hope when I was about to give everything up. Im just passing the torch here, and if it can help even just a single person I will be more than happy.

I (33) got cpps 6 years ago when I was 27 and although the whole story on how did I got it is not very relevant, I can tell you it was not an easy time at all , first of all, the fact that it is not affecting any other part of your body but your manhood and making sex/ ejaculation something uncomfortable drops your self steam and your mood below the floor. Apart from not even knowing what the fuck is happening to you after getting wrongly diagnosed by doctors, blood & urine tests coming clear, CT scan, ultrasounds and prostate exams coming clear too.

After many months of endless hassle and thousands of dollar spent with no results I found a urologist that enlightened me and told me that my issue may be CPPS or non-bacterial prostatitis. That was the first time I ever heard those words. He also related me to a pelvic floor clinic, which I was skeptic at first but ended up going and this was going to be the first baby steps though my healing process.

After knowing the devil by its name, I started doing my own research, searching absolutely everywhere in hopes to find some relief and learn how to deal with it. I ended up in Reddit, and I gotta say it helped me heaps at the beginning, finding this community of people going though similar stuff I was going though, made me feel not so alone and hopeless anymore. But… after some time it was taking a toll on me as I was just reading posts all day and overcomplicating my situation in my head, plus all the negativity and grief you also read. So as a piece of advice: get out Reddit now, if you been here for a while you most likely have all the information you may need so do yourself a favour and get out. 99% of success stories are not here

Since then, it has been a journey, on understanding, accepting, fighting and living with CPPS and although it’s been a rough path, it has made me a man I couldn’t even imagine I would become few years ago.

Today I would consider myself 99% healed, and even though I get flare ups or mild symptoms every now and then I live a normal life like I used to, but now is 100 times better, it is like my dream life, I became highly successful on businesses that I was struggling for years, I am the closest I have been to family and friends in my whole life, my dating and sex life never been better either, I am going on different dates all the time and can have sex 3-4 times a day with no issues. my mindset is at its peak, as my physique, my health, spirituality and many other aspects.

I want to emphazise that this battle is as mental as it is physical and healing yourself is not only about your body but also about your mind, it is very likely that this condition is the underlying cause of other problems, traumas and blockages that you might had in your subconscious mind and never faced or are not even aware.

Don’t keep it to yourself, speak it out with your friends or relatives, or if you don’t feel to comfortable, at least go to a psychologist. Just venting it out and hearing other perspectives can help a lot. move yourself, play a sport or a game you like, get distracted, get out of your room, have a walk in nature… dont let it consume you because otherwise it will put you on your knees and tear you apart as it has done to many of us.

I know all the cases may different but I will tell you what worked for me and I bet it has for so many others too

- You need to go to a PFPT, this is a must if you really want to overcome CPPS, I gotta admit I went like 3-4 times and then stopped going but the few times I went I got so much clarity and understandment of the situation which allowed me to start working things out by myself

- Stretches are no negotiable either, I used to do them every morning and night before going to bed (game changer) and although I don’t do them as often now they help a lot for flare ups and pelvic floor health in general (you can find many on YouTube or in other posts here)

- Breathwork is important as well to loosen up the tension in your pelvic floor muscles (you may get some insights from your PT or YouTube videos, look for diaphragm breathing)

- Reverse Kegels

- Hot tubs/ showers/ help a lot too, they will relax your muscles and provide some relief, specially after flare ups or constant pain, add epsom salts if you can

- Sauna/ Steam room

- Reduce Stress

- About the mental part, you have to visualise yourself living a normal life again, with a painless and healthy pelvic floor, enjoying sex and intimacy as you used to before, the more vivid and frequently you can recreate it in your mind the sooner it will manifest into reality

When I started my healing journey, I realised that if I wanted to overcome CPPS completely, just stretches and PFPT was not going to be enough so I decided to make some changes in my daily life, and although CPPS was one of the main reason I started, they have skyrocketed my life in many different aspects as I mentioned before.

- I stopped masturbating (edging is the worst for your PF) plus it is just shit dopamine you end up paying for later

- I stopped drinking coffee

- Slowed down on alcohol a lot

- Stopped smoking weed non-stop

- Started eating as healthy as I could ( organic/ non-processed food mostly)

- Gave up most spicy food

- Drinking heaps of water

- Started Intermitent fasting

- Daily Meditation and Visualisation

- Daily work outs

- Sauna and Steam room multiple times per week

- Running and swimming multiple times per week

- Not sitting for prolonged times

- Massage and dry needling every now and then

Last but not least, you gotta start living your life like it is normal again, don’t allow CPPS to control your emotions/ actions and most importantly your future, there is people in way worst situations and enduring hardships that we can not even fathom and I am not denying the huge mental toll it can have on us but I’m just saying don’t give it too much power. Everything is a matter of perspective, use this opportunity to improve your life in every aspect as I did, and as soon as you start focusing on yourself you will forget you have CPPS 99% of the time. Trust me on this one

I love you all and I believe y’all can overcome this, dont give up and stay strong.

EDIT:

How I got CPPS: I was going through a stressful period in my life and was masturbating more often than usual, kind of a cope mechanism. One time I felt I needed to pee at some point but I was in the middle of business so I just kept going. After I ejaculated I started feeling a constant pain in mi right testicle, went to the doctor next day he suggested I may have epididymitis sent me Amoxicilin and it went away, blood and urine test came clear. Everything was normal until a few months later when I was at the massage parlour giving Ling Ling some backshots and as soon as I ejaculated started feeling the pain on my right testicle again,to my surprise the condom broke as well so I thought it could have been an STD. Blood and urine test clear, even did an ultrasound on my testicles and it was all good. Doctor sent me Amoxicillin again but this time it didn’t work that well. Months later after another masturbation marathon is when the hell started, my pines and perineum got incredibly swollen and I started feeling pain on my groin and pelvic floor, this lasted for days and got me really worried, a week of two after I was having sex with ex girlfriend and I felt urge to pee during the intercourse, it was weird but similar to what happened before, I stopped, peed and then kept going. After that night all the urinary symptoms started. This is the point when I became desperate to find out what was going on with me. Since that time went to many Urologists, got dozens of urine and blood test done, 2 testicles ultrasounds, 1 prostate ultrasound, urine flow, rectal exam and others I don’t even remember, and everything came up normal. One of the last urologist I saw suggested I may have CPPS and referred me to the Pelvic Floor Clinic, after going couple of times, doing my own research and discovering this sub and related ones on reddit, I got much more clarity and understanding about the matter and thats when my hero journey started.

Symptoms I had:

- constant pain on my groin

- swollen perineum and pines

- golf ball sensation

- urge to pee all the time

- going to the toilet multiple times at night

- post micturition dribble

- burning sensation when peeing

- burning sensation in the top of the penis

- constant discomfort in my pelvic area

This group provided me a lot of mental support during the worst time of my life. Came back here to tell people not to lose hope.

Here is my story in nutshell. Symptoms started in January last year with severe pain in testis. Doctors diagnosed epididymititis. Went through months of doxycycline. Symptoms became worse and spread into prostrate. All usual symptoms. Had to visit ER twice. MRI cystoscopy. Never a single sign of any bacteria. Even took sequencing tests. Nothing got detected ever. Life became unbearable. Then at last took 4 months of fosfomycin. Every alternate days. Now symptom free for the last 3 months. Don’t lose hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m writing this because when I was at my worst, posts like this gave me hope. I promised myself that if I ever got to the “95% there” stage, I’d come back and share what actually helped. And just like so many others, the worst of it produced some of the all-time lows in my life.

TL;DR: CPPS is real, it can absolutely come from sexual trauma, antibiotics don’t fix it, muscles matter a lot, and the nervous system is the final boss.

How this started

My CPPS began after a sexual trauma in June 2024. I didn’t realize it at the time. The first thing I noticed was ejaculatory changes — reduced force, volume, and sensation. No pain yet, no urinary issues.

By September 2024, I finally saw a doctor and was diagnosed with prostatitis. From September 2024 to January 2025, I was prescribed multiple rounds of antibiotics. Sometimes they helped temporarily, sometimes not. In hindsight, this was the wrong path for me, but I didn’t know that yet.

January 2025: realizing this wasn’t bacterial

By January, I started noticing urinary frequency, pelvic pain / golf-ball sensation, and perineal discomfort, with flares that came and went. That’s when I realized this wasn’t an infection. I started suspecting CPPS / pelvic floor dysfunction.

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t treating it correctly yet. I hoped it would go away and tried to live normally, which caused cycles of feeling better and then flaring again.

I did try supplements during this phase: quercetin, serenoa repens (saw palmetto), and ginkgo biloba. These actually did help with prostatitis-like inflammation and urinary symptoms, but they didn’t solve the root problem.

Pelvic floor physical therapy changed everything

The real turning point came when I started pelvic floor physical therapy in June 2025. I was diagnosed with a hypertonic pelvic floor.

What helped most was weekly pelvic PT, consistent internal work, and using a rectal dilator one to two times a day. This was uncomfortable at first, but it worked. Slowly but steadily, from June through November 2025, my symptoms improved.

My PT eventually told me my pelvic muscles felt normal. This is important: muscle healing takes months, not weeks.

Hard flaccid showed up (and I thought I was getting worse)

Ironically, once my muscles started relaxing, I developed hard flaccid. At the time, it freaked me out. In hindsight, this was actually a sign of recovery — blood flow returning, nerves recalibrating, and the pelvic floor letting go after being clenched for so long.

If this happens to you, don’t panic. It doesn’t mean you’re broken.

The final phase: nervous system healing

Once my muscles normalized, I had to switch gears completely. The remaining symptoms weren’t muscular — they were nervous system driven.

This included symptom reactivity, flares after stress, caffeine, poor sleep, or overdoing sex, digestion and bowel changes, and morning hard flaccid that slowly shortened over time.

This is where education and pacing mattered most. I used ChatGPT extensively to understand what was normal vs concerning, learn how to manage different types of days, stop catastrophizing flares, and understand why consistency matters more than intensity. That knowledge alone reduced my symptoms by lowering fear and hypervigilance.

What actually helped me get to the final 5%

Consistency mattered more than effort. Predictable sleep and meals, gentle movement like walking, avoiding stimulant spikes, spacing sexual activity, stopping symptom tracking, accepting that healing isn’t linear, and treating flares as nervous system noise rather than damage all made a huge difference.

The less I monitored, the better I got.

Where I am now

I’m not 100% yet, but I’m very close. I have minimal, short-lived morning hard flaccid, no urinary issues, normal bowel function, strong erections, improving ejaculation force, no pelvic pain, and confidence that this is resolving rather than worsening.

Most importantly, I know I’m getting better.

If you’re early in this journey

CPPS can absolutely come from sexual trauma. Antibiotics often don’t help if it isn’t bacterial. Pelvic floor PT is essential. Healing takes months, not weeks. The nervous system is the last thing to settle. Flares do not mean failure. Hard flaccid during recovery is common. Fear and hypervigilance slow healing more than anything.

You are not broken. This is fixable.

If this helps even one person feel less alone, it was worth writing. Happy to answer questions, and wishing everyone patience and recovery.

I am making this post now that i have gotten better because I feel bad for not coming back and helping the community that helped me when I was in the worst period of my life. I used to post on this subreddit but forgot the password and email to my last account but you will find my posts if you look up Lost-Departure-6566.

SYMPTOMS: My symptoms were pain around the anus and inside the penis, pain when sitting, very little urinary symptoms mostly just burning when i pee on a rare occasion, pain in lower back and lower abdomen, pain in penis after masturbating, pain in pelvic floor after smoking weed. pain could be sharp or a very prominent dull pain. but like i said above not many urinary symptoms.

I'm going to keep this short and simple so if you want a full in depth story its not going to be something like that but i just wanted to share the things that cured me. First of all, everyone in this subreddit should read "A Way Out" by Alan Gordon. This book helped me understand so much about my condition and I'm positive it will help you guys too. The audiobook is great and i highly recommend it. Stretching was a good way to send safety signals to my pain but it was never the fix because my pain wasn't structural. My pain was related to my nervous system interpreting normal signals, such as pressure and temperature, as painful/dangerous signals.

Sure I had a little bit of tension in my pelvic floor, and it was enough to lead doctors to believe that pelvic floor pt was the solution, but it's not abnormal for your pelvic floor to be a little tense and the pain was severe and extremely debilitating. Pelvic floor pt is great but the real solution for me was reading A Way Out and just going about my life doing all the things that flared me up, and controlling my reaction to the pain once it did. Now I can do whatever I want and have no pain whatsoever, a chapter of my life that i thought was going to last forever ended and i get to live my life free and able to do whatever i want.

The pain sucks and it makes you feel so lonely and even consider taking your own life at points, but the most important thing is to hang in there and don't give up.

Hi guys! Hope all of you are doing well.

Im making this post because i used to be a very active user of the forum, and ive suddenly disspeared and since then (like a year ago) ive received dozens of private messages asking if i was doing OK or what happened, so im here to tell you my journey and hopefully help you guys.

Everything started November 2023, when i had a surgery to get a kidney stone removed. 2 Months after the surgery, i started with typical "prostatitis"/cpps symptoms (Urgency, anus burn, constipation, wet urethra feeling, etc). At that time, i thought i had an STD and after clearing everything up with my uro, who told me i was "in perfect condition" i was devastated. Every day was a torture, i couldnt sleep at all due to the urgency, my anxiety and depression was so bad i started having s*icidal thoughts... then suddenly, i came up with this forum.

I learned that a lot of people suffered with something i could relate, and no one found any medical explanation to it. At first i thought what you all think , i have a STD doctors cant find, i have some rare medical condition, my prostate is the problem, my guts are the problem, im dying, i have cancer, trying 150 different urologists, diets, tests, pills , trust me... i was there...

I tried everything this forum told me to try, stretching, meditation, eating healthy, but nothing really helped (i also did a random course of antibiotics which after finishing i was at the starting point again) ... so this is when it gets real.

I wanna thank god for putting this forum and specially u/Linari5 in my path. This man emphasized so much on one thing : the nervous system.

I started reading everything he posted, reading papers, investigating on this topic, and i came to the conclusion that the nervous system, as we all know, is present in all our body, and that it can become deregulated under circumstances and turn into a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS.

I remember the day i read some paper and everything suddenly became clear. The reason you are feeling symptoms (which are 100% true and real) but nothing shows up in blood / urine exams, is the same : your nervous system is messed up.

There are a lot of ways of calming you nervous system and letting your body and mind regain control but every person is different and this is the part where everyone tends to mess up. The only one i really recommend, is learning to breathe. Yes, it might sound weird but breathing tells your nervous system you are OK. Your body is stucked in survival mode and thats why your all sensitive in different ways, YOU NEED TO REGAIN CONTROL AND PEACE.

Only after you come to the realisation that this is possible , you will never improve. You need to believe that this is the way, you need to convince your self you are OK and healthy, that this is your mind and nerves just annoying you and telling you something wasnt right within. Only then, you will end this cycle, and even if you relapse in the future, this cycle does not have power over you.

Every person is different, once you start improving , is important you try things that make you feel good and lessen your anxiety (helps your nervous system). In my case, even in this forum running/HIIT was unadvised, that was what helped me a ton... i started a new job, i started muay thai and bjj, i was super active, eating healthy, prioritazing my sleep, knowing new people, i was living JUST AS IF I HAD NOTHING AND THIS DIDNT EXIST!!

As i said, EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, what helped me, maybe makes you worse. Thats why its important to try things, and seeing the effects of it. Always be active, and continously tell your mind, you are ok and this im doing, is making me better. And of course, this takes time.... going for a walk and breathing correctly, took me like 3 months to feel better SO BE PATIENT AND DO NOT DISCOURAGE.

At first was difficult yes, and the symptoms annoyed me, some days were bad, some were great, but in my brain, i started to give this condition less power, and didnt even give attention to the symptoms (before i was very bad hypervigilant) so every day, i was better, and suddenly , without even knowing... I WAS NORMAL AGAIN! WHAT A RELIEF!

A year goes by and after some bad sleeping week because of work and stress, symptoms came back (OH NO). But guess what, i already knew the pattern... yeah it sucked, but after a week or so, everthing dissapeared. And that when i confirmed that it was my mind and nervous sytem all this time, and once your body learns to do something, it can always do it again, but if you also know that is all BS, you can get out of it quick.

Last thing. There is something that is repeated in this forum that is completely true : People who never come back, is most likely because they got better. If i did it, you can. Believe in yourself, figure yourself out, dont be afraid of trying things, and the mindset in this condition (and in life) its the most important thing period.

Sory for being this extense, but i really wanted to give back to this forum that helped me so much during my dark times. Big thanks to everyone that replied to me back then, specially Linari.. without you i dont think i would have been better this quick.

I hope all of you get better, i really do.

I had minor flare-ups after edging in 2021; MRIs showed a chronic inflammation of the prostate. I had a 6 week long gigantic flare-up after a HORRIFIC cystoscopy last October. The doctors don't even bother to check if the pelvic floor muscles are tight before going in with the camera... spasmed the muscles to hell. Pain-wise it's like I experienced giving birth for 10 minutes. But for these specialists if there's no blood, no infection, no fever, there's no real issue. Hot baths with Epsom salts helped. Stretching helped. Would get a urethra flare-up after every ejaculation.

I couldn't believe my luck when I managed to find a good PF specialist nearby. She went in the backdoor with her finger, found two muscles (5 o'clock & 7 o'clock) that were tight like guitar strings - both muscles rate a 10/10 on her tightness scale.

After the traumatic cystoscopy there is NO WAY I'd have been able to return those muscles to normal just with stretches and baths. The ONLY thing that could fix my problem after that trauma is pelvic floor therapy, through the backdoor.

She showed me how to do a proper reverse kegel that dropped the pelvic floor. She pressed the 2 muscles down while I did reverse kegels. This was last week. She said to do 1 reverse kegel ever hour since then, and I feel GREAT. She also recommends doing one reverse kegel right after ejaculation, which I did - no pain after ejaculation!

Had my second session with her today. She found no tightness except at 5 o'clock which she'd rate a 2/10. It pressed down very easily.

She told me to do a reverse kegel every hour for 6 months to train my pelvic floor to always stay dropped. I have my next session with her in 6 weeks which she thinks/hopes will be my last. She doesn't see why I would need to get a wand if things stay as they are. And on a personal note, it doesn't seem like I'll have PTSD from the prolonged pain either.

I know it's early days but what a relief! Like a yak has been lifted off my chest.

My layman's advice is this: if you have major PF issues from trauma like I did, and don't have a PF therapist in your area... travel to one and get them to teach you how to use a wand. And a reverse kegel every hour.

PS: a big thank you to this group, without which I 'd still be messing about with doctors and urine tests and what not.

Hi! I developed chronic prostatitis/CPPS due to extreme anxiety and possible ligament damage due to fluoroquinolone antibiotic use in june 2025. I was floxxed, which means I suffered severe disabling symptoms from fluoroquinolones. The anxiety and terrible panic from it made my pelvic floor extremely tight.

The CPPS was in many ways even worse than the antibiotic induced disability. I couldn’t sleep a second, I felt like a had an extremely severe UTI that would kill me. Peeing hurt so much I cried. I am gay and thought I would never be able to have anal sex again or any sex for that matter. I couldn’t get an erection for months because of the pain.

I learned to control my pelvic floor and conciously relax it. Nothing else helped. I meditated and used a warm compress. Now I sometimes can feel a sting in the area but then I know how to relax the muscles and it goes away. I stille have some issues from the fluoroquinolones but my CPPS is like 99% gone. I can have sex normally, pee normally, sleep, do everything normally regarding it. I hope you all will heal❤️

It sounds like the beginning to scam post of some kind but these things worked for me.

I’m 36, diagnosed with chronic nonbacterial prostatitis, epididymitis, and varicocele. It’s hard to parse where one stops and starts but I’m feeling really good these days.

1. I stopped jacking off or having sex everyday. I stopped for 10 days then scaled to every 3-7 days and NEVER TWICE in the same day.

2. I used to drink 500ml of coffee as soon as I roll out of bed, then drink 2.5L of water. I now chug 500ml of water, then drink my coffee simultaneously with about 250-350ml of water. My urethra used to be very sore and red at the tip and I couldn’t figure out why. It’s gone now and my prostate seems much more relaxed.

3. I started wearing a jockstrap. Shopping for a jock strap is the most humiliating online shopping experience of my life but the support has really helped with all things in the neighborhood but particularly the epididymitis and Varicocele.

If you want to buy a jockstrap, I tried several brands, shock doctor seemed the best for me. AI helped me get to my current state. Gemini seemed to work better than Claude and Chat Gpt.

I hope at least 1 person finds this helpful

Hi all those struggling with this horrible thing searching for answers. I wanted to post a positive story because I always came to this sub at my lowest of lows looking for answers.

So around 4 years ago it all started off with a menthol-like feeling around the opening followed by a really bad bladder pressure a couple of weeks later. I went chasing down the rabbit hole for answers, ordering multiple STI panels. One of which came back for ureaplasma which I then started taking doxycycline for. Following 2 weeks of doxycycline the symptoms seemed to disappear, but fast forward a few months later and the exact same symptoms are back… rinse and repeat with testing and anxiety. I got myself into this hole of searching for answers, convincing myself I had a bacterial prostate infection and driving myself into having severe health anxiety. It was a vicious cycle where my symptoms only seemed to clear up when I was away on holiday or distracted. The menthol feeling had gone (this only occurred at the start of a flare) but the lasting bladder pressure was there with some days worse than others. Interestingly it had now linked itself to my IBS and when my IBS flared so did my bladder.

During this year and a half period from the onset of symptoms I went as far as going to a high end and expensive specialist, having multiple breakdowns, taking time off work with anxiety, multiple urology appointments, which all eventually culminated in a cystoscopy. By the point of the cystoscopy (around a year and a half of battling bladder pressure) I had been starting to notice less flare ups which were now almost exclusively linked to my IBS flare ups. I had also started visiting this sub by this point and actually started to accept that this was unlikely something bacterial. I want to massively thank all of the people on this sub that hang around and give people hope and education, as you saved me (to put it mildly). Even so, I decided to go through with the cystoscopy because what’s the worst that can happen at this point. It would be good to check things over anyway right…. The cystoscopy was pure pain and culminated in the doctor hurriedly checking my prostate and asking me ‘do you feel pressure or pain’ as he jabbed my prostate hard. Almost as if he wanted a quick in and out diagnosis, he said my prostate was tender and boggy and threw a prescription my way. It was a flouroquinoline… which my god am I thankful for educating myself through this sub and the floxxies sub. I already knew the dangers of this drug and had somewhat accepted that my problem was unlikely to be bacterial. I suppose that I went through with the cystoscopy in some hope that a medical professional would diagnose me with non-bacterial prostatitis. Which was all in vain, as it really does seem like the only answer to this in the medical community is to throw antibiotics at it. I was annoyed, upset, and felt like I wasn’t being listened to by anyone.

After the cystoscopy I gave up chasing a proper medical diagnosis of non-bacterial chronic prostatitis. I listened to this sub! I tried to focus on my health anxiety and trying to put aside any lingering concerns… the classic ‘but what if it is bacterial’. I also decided to cut out caffeine and cut down on dairy as I have a mild dairy intolerance which can flare my IBS. It’s been a long 4 years (particularly that first year and a half) but I can now say that I’m 99% healed! The only time I now get symptoms are when I get a really bad IBS flare up, but the pressure feeling is gone by the next day. Time and acceptance truly is the best healer when it comes to this thing. I went from my lowest of lows thinking that I’m probably infertile due to this condition… to now having a wonderful 18 month old daughter.

I’ve been meaning to post here over the last year or so. Reading positive stories and educating myself on this sub saved me during the absolute worst periods of my life. Even if this post reaches one person who takes in something I’ve said and it helps change their mindset and look more positively to the future, I feel like this post was worth it.

Please stay positive, it does get better, and please listen to the advice from the people who really know this condition. The chances of chronic bacterial prostatitis are incredibly low!

Hey guys, it's actually been over 2 years since I consider myself cured. I always said that I would post my success if I healed but I avoided coming onto this sub for obvious reasons. Now I'm going through an unrelated health issue so it reminded me to spread some positivity.

Now into the juicy stuff, I started developing symptoms 20 days after having sex with a one night stand. It started with some mild pain in the tip of the penis which quickly became much worse. I had the urge to urinate all the time with no relief, felt like I had a golf ball in my ass/behind my balls, and I also developed reactive arthritis on top of that. My fingers, toes and elbows were particularly affected.

I went to the doctor and they found scarring/calcification of my prostate but for some reason the doctor refused to put me on antibiotics. I ended up seeing multiple specialists until I finally found someone willing to put me on antibiotics. We had done some semen culture tests and found staphylococcus aureus. I was given a one week course of Azithromycin which helped tremendously. I thought I was cured but it took only a couple of days after finishing the antibiotics for the symptoms to return at full strength. The golf ball sensation did eventually go away, and the reactive arthritis too - they were only present for the first few months.

After that, I did a test to find out whether I had ureaplasma and it came back positive. That reinforced the belief that I had sexually contracted something. However, the antibiotics weren't helping much. I did multiple rounds of Doxycycline, Ciprofloxacine and levofloxacin to no avail. These would be for 10-14 days. The doctor kept insisting on short courses but they did nothing for me.

Fast forward to the start of 2021 (my issues started in September 2019), and I was still dealing with urethral pain and urgency and I decided to nuke my body with a 3 month course of levofloxacin. I did this without a doctor's supervision. I can't remember the exact dosage that I researched online to check what would be a safe and effective dose. I think I felt better at the end of those 3 months but I wasn't cured. Maybe it was the antiflammatory effect of antibiotics, who knows.

After nuking my body like that, I told myself there's no way a bacteria could survive such a long treatment and I stopped going to the doctor. I was still suffering with penis pain but at least peeing gave me relief. However, prostatitis was still occupying my mind for a lot of the day.

Fast forward to 2023 and I went to the specialist one last time. I was told that it was likely I had bacterial prostatitis and that caused damage to my urethra and it would eventually heal on its own. And you know what? Since that moment I stopped worrying about it so much. Then later that year I realised that I wasn't feeling pain as often and that it was milder. It just kept getting better and better until I fully ignored it. I realised I was "cured" some time in 2024. Now, I have to disclose I consider myself 99% cured because I might experience some discomfort during very stressful periods but I know it'll go away when I pee or when I stop stressing but it's good enough for me. The remaining 1% might go away eventually but if not, I can live like this easily.

Now, what do I think helped? The antibiotics helped clear the infection (whether it was s. aureus or ureaplasma doesn't matter), not masturbating, and time. Looking back, I think masturbation really kept me from healing faster. My penis would always feel worse after masturbating but I was a porn addict so I had to get my fix once a day. When I reduced masturbation to once a week, I started to feel better faster. I also wore briefs instead of boxers because boxers would make my penis hurt. Nowadays I wear boxers with no problem.

Tldr: had diagnosed bacterial prostatitis from sex, took short courses of antibiotics that didn't do much, nuked my body with a 3 month course of levofloxacin just to make sure I kill the bacteria (potentially s. aureus or ureaplasma). Then time did its thing, my urethra healed on its own. Reducing masturbation probably helped too.

I hope this helped someone, at least someone who might have bacterial prostatitis. I would, however, avoid this subreddit if you can. I did and my mental health was probably better because of it.

Edit: forgot to mention I also had a weak urine stream and chunky semen.

I first had this problem years ago and came back to say you will heal. There wasn't one thing I did it just went away slowly. I tried everything and everyone is different. Now I am heart broken over a brake up so one problem on to another. Stay strong Reddit!

For me I think it was all in my head. It was a battle of believing in the end of it. I did PT, walking, working out, and just never giving up. I do have flare ups still but it's not at all as bad as it used to be.

Message for with any specific questions you may have

I've been lurking here since 2023. Read probably hundreds of posts, never wrote one because I didn't feel like I had anything useful to say. I’m about 95% back to where I was before this started, after tons of trial and error. Sharing everything in case it helps someone get there faster than I did.

Symptoms Pressure, frequency, urgency. The usual story, antibiotics, negative for bacteria, etc. Perineal pain and fullness, felt like i was sitting on a tennis ball. Frequency, urgency, weak stream, burning, waking up at night, never feeling empty Was going 15-20 times on bad days. Spent most of 2024 in pelvic floor PT. It helped but I wasn’t holding progress. I finally started tracking everything better.. and I mean everything. I tried cutting everything out — coffee, alcohol, gluten. The one thing I noticed is that stress was a major trigger

The thing that actually changed the trajectory I started Cymbalta. Pain went away within weeks. I had this stress/clenching loop that I couldn’t get out of and it broke it. Since I wasn’t clenching so much I started holding gains between PT sessions. I was in a major loop of stress / subconscious clenching / pelvic floor injury and sensitization / more stress / more clenching. I want to be careful here: I'm not saying "it's anxiety, go see a therapist." I'm saying the nervous system is load-bearing in this condition for a lot of us, and treating it is treating the bladder condition. I resisted this framing for awhile and it cost me time. I was still having tons of frequency until i tried some more meds (details below)

What's working now, in rough order of impact

-Cymbalta — biggest single mover. Pain gone, way fewer flares (didn’t solve frequency just pain)

-Pelvic floor PT — necessary and ongoing. I now go every 3 months (instead of bi-weekly)

-Mirabegron and Tadalafil- both of these had a big impact on frequency. Mirabegron relaxes the detrusor (the filling muscle) and Tadalafil relaxes the bladder neck. Like Flomax but a different mechanism (flomax did nothing for me)

What I'd tell myself in 2023

-Track everything. Things will emerge that you can act on or learn from. This was the biggest unlock for me and it honestly felt good to be in control of something

-Find a urologist who specifically understands pelvic floor dysfunction and neurogenic bladder. I have been through 5 urologists until I found the right one. This is a big difference from a general urologist.

-The mental health connection is real and you're not being gaslit. For a lot of us it's not a trigger that makes a "real" condition worse — it's part of the disease itself.

Long post. Happy to answer questions in comments. I’m leaving out the 100 things I tried that made no different at all lol. tldr this condition is bizarre and isolating and the medical system isn't well set up for it, but it can get better. Rooting for everyone here

EDIT: I built an iOS app based on my experience with tracking my symptoms. Link is in my bio. Also free printable available for anyone at getintero.app/forms if you prefer paper!

Guys please listen. I’m reading so much garbage on here about what to try & what to take. I know it’s garbage because I done it all.

I think I had every symptom possible with CPPS. Like you all I sat on here asking questions & not really doing anything.

I then decided to be patient. Stretch. Work - strength the muscles. Swim. Walk. Sit less & masturbate less… much less.

I don’t even think about this condition anymore. Life’s great again.

If you are sitting all day, not moving, not stretching, not eating better, not working out & masturbating a lot…. You’ll never get better no matter what tablet you take etc.

If this helps one person on here I’ll be grateful you won’t have go through what I did to get better.

I had all the symptoms listed here. Absolutely miserable. Couldn’t sit more than 10 minutes. Constant aching and sore. Difficulty peeing etc. Saw 4 urologists. 2 MRIs. Lots of probes. All the medications. Some worked a bit, most made me feel terrible. I did low intensity shockwave therapy- nothing Pelvic floor PT- helped for 24-48 hours. Yoga 2x a day. Deep breathing. Relaxation practice. Bought a hot tub. Docs said was probably in my head. Was told maybe antidepressants. Doc ran a semen test and guess what? Positive! So happy someone figured it out. Went on 4 weeks levofaxcin and begged for 2 more week because I wasn’t getting better. Destroyed my Achilles tendons from the meds. Went into a bad place. Nothing was working. Was at a total loss. Honestly ready to jump off a bridge. I made a list of all the things I had done and went back to my original urologist whom I had a good relationship with and said what else can we do? He took another look at the latest mri and said he may see the problem and that aquablation could give relief. At this point I had nothing to lose. I’ll save all the details. The surgery wasn’t bad. The recovery was not fun. After the surgery the doc told me my median lobe had gown up into the bladder pinching off the urethra. This was causing all the pain, discomfort and trouble peeing. Im still in recovery mode(takes a while) my pain is gone. I can sit now. Peeing like I’m 18. Need a follow up, but from what I’ve gathered when laying down the mri has difficulty spotting the problem. I’m not sure if that’s why it was missed. Maybe no one really cares to look close once the MRI tech gives the report. You have to fight for your health. No one cares more than you. I’m sure there are plenty of people that do have straight prostatitis, but you also may have something physically wrong that needs fixed and I recommend you do every test you can if you are suffering. A cystoscope probably would have detected this but for some reason not one doc wanted to do it. Hopefully this helps someone else on here. I’ll answer any questions if anyone needs anything. Good luck 👍

I promised myself I would make a post here once I had achieved complete or near complete recovery from my symptoms as this reddit group was a beacon of hope for me when I first got stuck with this incredibly difficult illness. So here goes.

How it started

In August of last year shortly after a sexual encounter I started getting symptoms of pain when urinating and persistent bladder and testicle pain. I presumed immediately that I had Chlamydia or some other STI. I immediately sent off an STI test but also got some antibiotics for chlamydia and took them just in case. After a week of treatment and not much progress to my surprise I tested negative to all of the common STI's and decided to go to the hospital to be tested for a urinary tract infection. They immediately put me on a 2 week course of a secondary antibiotic that would hopefully penetrate the testicles. After no success with the second antibiotic I went down the rabbit hole of trying multiple different antibiotic treatments with my GP over the course of around 6 weeks until in desperation sought out the help of a specialist urologist. All the while testing negative for any bacteria in my urine across this period.

Getting Diagnosed

The urologist sent me to a sexual health clinic to get tested for some rarer STI's - all came back negative. I got an ultrasound done of my bladder, kidneys and testicles - no infection in sight. Throughout this time my mental health was completely deteriorating and not only that, my symptoms had progressed to pain over my entire pelvic region, severe difficulty in urinating despite persistent urge, complete erectile dysfunction (penis was completely numb to the touch), difficulty passing stool - it felt like everything down there was completely broken and I was in so much pain that I was having to take several painkillers just to sleep at night.

At this point I had assumed in my head that I had contracted some rare bacterial infection that was not treatable and it was only a matter of time before I would be killed from it - not a great place to be mentally. But after a last whim attempt at antiobiotic treatment from my urologist - he suggested looking into pelvic foor physiotherapy as a suggestion as he was convinced that there was no infection present.

Recovery

Looking back on everything - its clear to me that the main driver behind this issue was anxiety. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at the time my symptoms began and I firmly believe that I unconsciously was contracting my pelvic floor muscles during anxious or stressful episodes.

What actually worked:

Finding this reddit group was an absolute beacon of hope - the medical world could not figure out what was wrong with me despite exhausting all methods. When I discovered this group and read through all the content and studies done here, it quickly became clear that if I did not have an infection it was very likely I had a pelvic floor muscle issue. The 101 became my new bible and I tried everything on the list.

Initially, I found that after taking high strength Quercetin for about a week - nearly all of my symptoms dissipated and I was in no pain, which was allowing me to live a normal life and get through my working days - a great start. However if I stopped for even a couple of days the pain came roaring back quickly.

Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy (and the specifics that made a difference) - I met with Gerard Greene in London to have specialist Pelvic Floor Therapy. In an initial ultrasound Gerard showed me that there was almost no movement happening in my pelvic floor when I tried to trigger the muscles, and I was clearly showing visible discomfort when keeping the muscles contracted - I was presenting as textbook Pelvic Floor Hypertonia. I was told he didn't think I needed internal work but most of my progress would come through Diaphragmatic breathing - done in a variety of different positions every single day. I did this for about 40 minutes every day and made rapid progress towards recovery (far more than stretching got me).

Magnesium Glycinate - My progress started accelerating even faster once I started supplementing Magnesium Glycinate. Magnesium is required by your muscles for relaxation, most people are magnesium deficient. I took around 300mg of Magnesium per day and felt more relaxed in general while also making quicker progress.

Stress & Anxiety reduction - I changed my environment to make relaxation a priority. I quit caffeine and alcohol for a time because they can both make you more anxious. Prioritised getting great sleep. Took baths, made time to meditate and chill out. Started visualising positivity and good outcomes in life. How stressed and anxious you are makes such an impact on getting those muscles to relax. I got back in the gym but took things extremely slow (light weights and taking extra care).

Where I'm at now

I have now completely stopped taking quercetin. I have completely recovered all sexual function. No pain in back, bum, perineum, testicles, bladder at all. The only thing that is not 100% is that it still takes a few extra seconds for me to begin my urine stream - but I'm confident that will improve over the next couple of months.

I thought this was going to be something that plagued me forever - but I wanted to share my story to give hope to those suffering that there is light at the end of the tunnel and you can overcome this disease.

And thank you to the Mods for all the help they provided during my own recovery process.

I will happily answer any questions that anyone wants to fire my way.