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Does prostatitis ever heal?

Most cases of acute bacterial prostatitis are cured with treatment. Sometimes prostatitis can come back even after you've been cured. Your health care provider may use more than one treatment at a time. Some men have to manage living with the symptoms until the inflammation goes away.

urologyhealth.org - Prostatitis (Infection of the Prostate): Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment

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Your health care provider may start by asking you questions about your pain to find out what’s wrong. A digital rectal exam (DRE) may be done to check the prostate. Your doctor may do a transrectal ultrasound to look at your prostate or do a test called cystoscopy to check your urinary system. You may also be asked to get lab tests to look for bacteria in your urine or prostate fluid. A urine flow study or urodynamics test may be done to look for a block in your urinary system. If your health care provider suspects a problem with your prostate or nearby tissues, he/she may send you to a urologist. A urologist is a doctor who treats problems of the urinary tract and male reproductive systems. Each type of prostatitis calls for a different treatment. Your doctor will want to know exactly what is causing your symptoms. To find the answers, more than one type of test may be used.

Physical Exam

Your health care provider may do a digital rectal exam (DRE). This is done by putting a lubricated, gloved finger into your rectum. Your doctor will press and feel the prostate to see if it is enlarged or tender. Lumps or firmness can suggest prostate cancer. He/she will ask you how much pain you feel during this test. If you have prostatitis, this exam may hurt a bit. But it doesn't cause any harm or lasting pain.

Tests

Ultrasound

To get a closer look at the prostate gland, your health care provider may order a transrectal ultrasound. An ultrasound uses sound waves to show a picture of the prostate. To "see" the prostate, the ultrasound probe is placed in the rectum.

Urine and prostate fluid tests

Your doctor may test your urine and fluid from your prostate gland. When the prostate is massaged during the DRE, a fluid called expressed prostatic excretion (EPS) comes out of the penis. Urine and EPS are checked for signs of inflammation and infection. The test results may tell the doctor if the problem is in your urethra, bladder, or prostate. Your blood and semen may also be tested for bacteria, white blood cells, or other signs of infection. Because it can be hard to get good samples, health care providers can sometimes have trouble telling if prostatitis is caused by bacteria. Also, if you have been treated with antibiotics in the recent past, this can change the results. If you are at risk for cancer, your health care provider may order a blood test to check your prostate specific antigen (PSA) level. But if you have a prostate infection, your PSA can be falsely raised. Because of this, doctors are careful about how they read your PSA test results.

Cystoscopy

Your urologist may look inside your urethra, prostate, and bladder with a cystoscope. A cystoscope is a long, thin telescope with a light at the end. First, your urologist will numb your urethra. Then, he or she will gently guide the cystoscope through your urethra into the bladder.

Urine Flow Studies (Urodynamics)

Your urologist may also order urine flow studies or urodynamics. These help measure the strength of your urine flow. These tests also spot any blockage caused by the prostate, urethra, or pelvic muscles.

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How effective is water vapor therapy for BPH?

Effectiveness. The five-year data from the Rezūm clinical study showed the durability of Rezūm Therapy. Surgical retreatment was low – only 4.4% of patients later needed another surgical procedure for BPH, and 11.1% later needed medications for BPH symptom management following their Rezūm Therapy treatment.

rezum.com - The Science of Steam Treating BPH Safely, Efficiently and Effectively

In the Rezūm Therapy procedure, when the steam is delivered to the prostate tissue, it condenses into water and releases the stored energy. This is an efficient way to transfer energy inside the body because the vapor is dispersed in the prostate tissue and delivered in a matter of seconds.2 The steam is delivered to the prostate at a temperature of about 103°C; it does not break through tissue. Instead, steam travels through cell spaces until it meets a boundary, such as a membrane. On reaching the membrane, steam condenses within the cell spaces back to water releasing the stored energy, bringing the tissue temperature to approximately 70°C-80°C, which leads to immediate cell death.4,5 Upon cell death, the body’s natural processes come into play. Inflammation occurs and the body’s inflammatory system sends out cells that act as scavengers to the swollen area in the prostate.6 The body, with the help of the scavenger cells, resorbs the dead tissue over time and the prostate volume is reduced.7 The number of 9-second injections needed to complete a Rezūm procedure depends on the size and anatomy of the prostate.8 Hence, the Rezūm Therapy procedure may be specifically performed for each patient’s anatomical requirements. On average, 4.5 injections were used to treat men in the Rezūm Therapy clinical trial, and the average procedure time in the trial was less than 10 minutes.1

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