Brand new member needs advice

[neptune]

Just found this site today, and it seems to hold some promise to help me. A few months ago I was diagnosed with prostatitis when I told my doctor of painful urination and weak/interrupted flow when I urinated. Flomax and an antiobiotic were prescribed; the pain during urination went away but the weak urination persisted. After a couple of months I started developing chronic pain in my pelvis. I have this question: How far can the pain spread beyond the pelvic region? I ask because I somtimes experience pain in my lower back, shoulders, thighs, knees and even calves. I know pain can often be hard to describe precisely, but I have another question: How severe can this pain get? I missed a whole week of work recently because my whole pelvis and lower back were severely sore. Bending was almost a nightmare sometimes. My doctor gave me some Celebrex, and that seemed to help control the pain somewhat, at least enough so that I could return to work. Pain can vary a lot within the same day some times, and other days the pain level remains relatively stable. Maybe I should also mention that I have been taking antidepressants for almost nine years, and I have had severe depressive episodes a couple of times during that time, but never had any chronic pain symptoms of any kind over this entire period.

I am going back to my urologist in 10 days at which time he will perform a cystoscopy. Are there specific questions I should ask him?

To conclude, I'll mention that in my whole life (I am 38) I have never experienced chronic pain in any body part, so this whole experience is disturbing, to say the least. I am not at all a hypochondriac, but sometimes when the pain gets severe and widespread (as I mentioned above) I have to admit that the thought of having prostate cancer enters my mind. As upsetting as that thought is, it is compounded by the fact that I am a single father of a 6 yr old boy.

I ask all of you for some sound advice. It will be greatly appreciated.

[CppsDad]

The central theme of chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome is that pain can be referred from one source to another. I don't know if there is an exact definition of "how far" it can spread, but I don't think there are any technical limits. And the pain can certainly be bad; really bad. You just need do searches in the last two weeks to find posters who have missed work and have been bedridden like yourself from their pelvic pain.

I ask because I somtimes experience pain in my lower back, shoulders, thighs, knees and even calves

I don't think I've heard of pain in the neck and knees and calves from CPPS, but pain from any muslce-laden region could be caused by stress. And, of course, all those areas can carry referred pain signals. Still, you probably need to go through the full battery of tests that we all went through, just to rule out anything more serious.

Pain can vary a lot within the same day some times, and other days the pain level remains relatively stable

Pain can vary quickly with CPPS, hourly, daily, or weekly. chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome waxes and wanes quite regularily.

Maybe I should also mention that I have been taking antidepressants for almost nine years

This is only significant in the fact that chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome has a higher than average correlation to depression and anxiety after removing the sufferers who got depression and anxiety as a result of their CPPS. Those of us who are anxious (I'm one of them), tend to hold tension in our muscles more than others. Therefore, we suffer more tension-related disorders than normal people (chronic headaches, backaches, neck aches, pelvic pain, IBS, etc...).

Michael