Prostatitis

1/30/2020 0 COMMENTS Prostatitis? You're probably thinking Georgia what are you talking about? Well up until about 7 months ago it was a word I'd never heard of either. My now ex boyfriend (don't worry we're still friends and he gave me the go ahead for this blog post!) was diagnosed with it. So, what is it? It is the inflammation or swelling of the prostate gland. The illness itself has two main categories acute prostatitis and chronic. Chronic is where there are many flare ups and they're not constant but they come and fade over time and is the more common form of the disease. Whereas, acute is the sudden onset of the disease (NHS Foundation Trust, 2017).  Last year around July time I got a phone call from my then boyfriend saying he'd been feeling like he'd had the flu for a while but we never thought much of it. He was in a lot of pain and was also suffering with a urine infection as well, so we just assumed they were connected and didn't think much of it, this was until he kept complaining of pain in his balls. Eventually, he rang me (very ill) and said I've called an ambulance I need to go to A&E. I met him at A&E, but you know if you've ever been to A&E these days it was no walk in the park. We waited at least 3 hours just to get a bed, another two on the bay, another one before we were even seen. When we were eventually seen he was automatically put on an antibiotic drip and that was when we knew we weren't getting out of there anytime soon. When we got moved to the next set of bays around 3am (we'd gone in at 11pm). We waited for a little bay with a curtain which took a along time, you know constant observations and ECGs. We were told they were waiting for a bed for him on the ward. Whilst in the A&E department we were seen by multiple people, he was taken for a CT scan and had to multiple urine samples. A specialist came down to see us and we were both confused having thought it was simply just a really bad urine infection. He said there is something but we're not too sure we need to get you on the ward. 14 and half hours later, one uncomfortable broken sleep on a hospital chair and he was finally admitted to the ward.. The ward I think was where we got the biggest shock. We were on the renal ward for people suffering with prostate cancer. At the age of 21 he was the youngest person in there. A man came and chatted to us and said you must watch out for your prostate I came in with a similar thing now I live with prostate cancer everyday. I think the shocking part was how young he was. Eventually he was discharged with antibiotics and told he has something called prostatitis.  After the antibiotics he was back to his normal self... for a while until it happened again. The weird part was the week before he had his 6 month review from the admission it was like they knew it was about to happen again.  We got a taxi to A&E again, a long wait period except this time he was treated very differently, straight up to the ward he'd been admitted on before. We saw loads of people again, blood tests, urine samples, we were used to the routine. She said it had come back again and here's another two week course of antibiotics known as ciprofloxacin. After this two weeks were over he was back again to his usual self. This was until about two days ago when he said he felt like he was getting the flu and the doctor had said you will be fine until around the end of January that is when the antibiotics will ware off.  His life now will be a constant chain of antibiotics. Nurses and doctors were stunned at how it could have affected someone so young, at one point he was even misdiagnosed with appendicitis. He had previously had many other wrong diagnosis's . I wrote this blog post in order to raise awareness of the disease because I'd never heard of it until I was faced with it. I hope this has opened peoples's eyes in to realising that prostate problems don't just affect men in their 40s and over.  If you would like any more information here are some links:  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/prostatitis/ https://prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-information/further-help/prostatitis https://www.medicinenet.com/prostatitis_inflammation_of_the_prostate_gland/article.htm