What are the symptoms?
Signs and symptoms of prostatitis can vary depending on the type of disorder. They may include:
- Pain or burning sensation when urinating (dysuria)
- Difficulty urinating, such as dribbling or hesitant urination
- Frequent urination, particularly at night (nocturia)
- Urgent need to urinate
- Cloudy urine
- Blood in the urine
- Pain in the abdomen, groin or lower back
- Pain in the area between the scrotum and rectum (perineum)
- Pain or discomfort of the penis or testicles
- Painful ejaculation
- Fever, chills, muscle aches and other flu-like symptoms (with acute bacterial prostatitis)
What are the causes?
Causes vary depending on the type of prostatitis.
- Acute bacterial prostatitis is usually caused by common strains of bacteria. The infection may have spread from other parts of the urinary or reproductive systems.
- Chronic bacterial prostatitis generally has the same cause as acute bacterial infection. It may occur when treatment for an acute infection isn’t long enough or fails to kill all the bacteria.
- Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is not well understood. Research suggests that multiple factors may collectively play a role. These include previous infection, nervous system dysfunction, immune system dysfunction, psychological stress or irregular hormone activity.
- Asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis, which has no known cause, is generally found only during an exam for other medical conditions and is not treated.