My story so far

[convexenvelope]

Hi all, I am looking for some guidance / opinions on my case. I am 29 yo, 179 cm x 64 kg. No health conditions (apart from intrusive, bilateral, noise-induced chronic tinnitus). Based in Sweden. Quite sedentary lifestyle (I am a mathematician). No STDs.

On January 11th I started experiencing non-localized electrical / tingling pain in my lower left groin (the pain moved afterwards to other parts of the body -> lower left back, along the left thigh) and feeling of having full bladder even when empty. This lasted a couple of weeks and it completely cleared up on its own. In the meantime I had a standard medical evaluation (blood samples: clean, urine culture: clean, digital rectal exam: prostate maybe slightly tender, not sure); the GP told me to take some Ibuprofen that did nothing for the pain. At the beginning of February the symptoms came back in a hiccup form - one day yes, the next one no / less. After reading r/prostatitis I started suspecting that my issue was muscular, because it is (temporarily) relieved by walking and by sleeping, and thus I began religiously stretching twice a day (say, from the 7th of February); stretching seemed to help, I had full days with no symptoms. But then they came back in full force.

On the 11th of March I met with an urologist who did prostate ultrasounds and another digital inspection and said there is a little bit of inflammation; he prescribed with 4 weeks of Ciprofloxacin, 500 mg twice a day, despite my urine culture was clean. Now, in normal conditions I would have probably taken the antibiotics, but the whole tinnitus business taught me to be really careful around meds (and doctors), and in fact Ciprofloxacin is notorious for being ototoxic, with some anecdotal and scientific evidencies of aggravating pre-existing tinnitus or causing it abruptly. I have asked this to the urologist and he said it was safe; well, it does not seem to be that safe (cfr. this paper).

On the 24th of March I will see another urologist. He wants me to re-do the urine culture and an uroflowmetry.

What it is your take on my case? Is the one am I experiencing a (random) flare-up, and should I continue with stretching? I am also taking Quercetine 400 mg twice a day.

Thank you very much!

[webslave]

The fact that your pain and tingling is also in the back and thigh may indicate a pinched nerve or nerve impingement. Have you had a lumbar spine MRI?

[convexenvelope]

The fact that your pain and tingling is also in the back and thigh may indicate a pinched nerve or nerve impingement. Have you had a lumbar spine MRI?

Very interesting, thanks. No, I have not done an MRI (socialized healthcare...). I will try to get one done.

The tingling - which is more like and "electrical discomfort", and it is different from the tingling sensation that one gets when for example falls asleep on the arm - it usually begins when the bladder starts filling up. It definitely irradiates from the prostate area, but yes, it reached the outer left thigh sometimes. More often it reaches the left lower back (right above the left buttock). The more I hold the urine, the more I feel this sensation; the problem is that the bladder is usually almost empty. When I void the bladder, squeezing out the few drops, the electrical feeling goes away and I am left with sensation of fullness.

I have a some more info to share. When I strain (even gently) to defecate I feel like my prostate (or something in that area) is squeezed by a fist; this feeling persists for approx. 30 minutes after defecation. Moreover few days before the actual onset I had some constipation, and I remember straining quite a lot; in connection to that something happened: I started waking up in the middle of the night with intense burning and urge to urinate (never happened before). In those situations the bladder was full, though.

One last thing: I had similar symptoms in summer 2019, for three weeks. They cleared up on their own and never appeared again (until now).

This is pretty much all, I tried to describe all my symptoms at my best. I definitely feel that something muscular is wrong down there, but I cannot really pinpoint what.

[webslave]

You are close to the peak incidence age for UCPPS, so that's probably what's going on. You are doing some things right but there's a lot more you could be doing. Follow the Tips. https://ucpps.men/viewtopic.php?t=9338

[Balenul]

Webslave is not clear for me if Vitamin C is good. one time, is saying is good cause is a antihistamic, and another time it say to avoid multivitamins with B and C. ty

[webslave]

Use the non-acidic form of Vit C, e.g. sodium ascorbate.

[convexenvelope]

You are close to the peak incidence age for UCPPS, so that's probably what's going on. You are doing some things right but there's a lot more you could be doing. Follow the Tips. https://ucpps.men/viewtopic.php?t=9338

I will do. Thank you very much. If UCPPS is what I have, I bet the culprit is my tinnitus. It can get so intrusive to be heard in an airplane's cabin. Few months after the onset I started clenching my jaws in response to the distress the tinnitus brought; I bet I started clenching my pelvic muscles too.

[webslave]

I heard an expert on tinnitus saying that one of the ways of coping with it, and it's one that I have used, is to unfocus from it, relegate it to unimportant status. And it is actually unimportant. After a while you only notice it if someone mentions tinnitus, and you ask yourself "do I still have tinnitus?", so you listen, and yes, there it is, but you weren't even aware it was there.

[convexenvelope]

Yes, since there is literally no cure / effective treatment for tinnitus, I guess "habituation" might be the goal. However it depends on the severity, the presence (or not) of reactivity; a loud tinnitus is not that easy to ignore, nor is one that reacts / responds to external noises. It just cripples you with anxiety and depression.

[webslave]

There is a possible bidirectional or cyclic relationship between depression and tinnitus that you need to note.

Some experts theorize that tinnitus is secondary to an aberrant brain-ear circuitry affected by disorders such as mood, anxiety, and alcohol and substance abuse as well as executive dysfunction, migraine, sleep and stress
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/p ... y-tinnitus