A month ago I operated on a 69-year old man whose wife had encouraged him to join our surgery clinical trial . She did it because she was sick and tired of his pains getting in the way of their social lives: "I can't travel, I can't be with friends ... He needs to get better so I can get out." How long had this been a problem? 45 years! So that's not quite one hundred years of solitude but it sure seems like an awful long time to be in social confinement, one of the recurring features of chronic prostatitis.

Surgery, by the way, went nicely and he's doing well: his Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (CPSI)  score has within one month dropped from 27 to 4. That rivals the most dramatic previous drop seen, which was from 40 to 2.

Just because you've had something for a very long time does not mean you necessarily have to keep on having it. And if his case proves nothing else, it's that when we say chronic prostatitis, we mean chronic prostatitis.

Happy trails, C!