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Acute and chronic prostatitis discussion. Arnon Krongrad, MD, moderator.

Hello everyone.. I am a fellow prostatitis sufferer living in Canada. My conditions seems to be a little different than most peoples... I started having the symptoms about 9 months ago. It started as a sharp pain in my pelvic region for which I saw the doctor, he prescribed antibiotics and some pain killers... The pain continued and I saw another doctor who did some urine tests and found nothing.. I finally saw a Urologist who did a cystoscopy which found showed no abnormalities... He checked my stream of urine and it was low and based on this he concluded I had prostatitis. He precribed cipro 3 weeks and than 4 weeks after that. My symptoms after this subsided for about a month than came back with pain in the testicles for which I went back to him... he has presribed cipro 4 weeks again.. But I am not taking it... I am going to see a different urologist now to see what he says,... I have never had any fevers or chills from my prostatitis, which leads me to think its not bacterial however the antibiotics Ive taken have seem to help, especially the Azithromyacin which I took for the testicle pain, and the doxycycline to a lesser extent helped with th pain aswell.

My question is:
What is the cost of Dr. Bahn's treatment in Cali? (the 3-4 sessions everything included)
And does his treatment really work? I am going to consider it if this next urologist cant do anything for me either...

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Dear Pekka,

Thanks so much for a reply! I am in a similar situation as you were at the time of your visit and I am now scheduling a visit. You mentioned you are ALMOST symptoms free now - would you be able to share why is it almost? Also - has dr Guercini prescribed anything that helped you or it was just a TRUS examination with no actions taken? I'm 30, my PSA was 1.31 when it all started, it is 0.7 right now and I feel much better (Almost symptom free) after the autoimmunological vaccine (therapeutical vaccine for Enterococcus faecalis that is in my semen). 

All the best, happy 2012!

novik

Hi Novik,

 

I believe that my prostate will not become exactly same as it was before prostatitis. For example I am very sensitive for sitting cold surface (like a car seat at winter time).  And sometimes I have some feelings in my pelvis area reminding me bad days.

But in general it is not affecting my life anymore. Just now I filled up NIH-CPSI form and my result is somewhere betveen 0 and 2.

I must add one thing my previous list "what I did to improve my prostatitis" ...

- no sex without protection

 I was thinking that my prostate was in irritation state. And I did not want to irritate it more by getting microbes from my partner.

I hope that sharing my experience is helpfull for someone else.

 

All the Best

Pekka

 

I do plan to see Dr. guercini  next month after many of the antibiotics with no real improvement the most important thing for me is to detect this bacteria inside my prostate   

Hi novik,

I am interested in finding out more about the autoimmunological vaccine for enterococcus faecalis you mentioned in your post above. Has it continued to help reduce your symptoms? Where did you get the vaccine and how was it administered? Also, does it have a particular name? Any help is greatly appreciated, I have the same infection and unfortunately it has caused reactive arthritis.

Regards,

Lee

Hi Lee,

The vaccine is custom-made from your own bacteria isolated in the lab. The process takes about 1 month (cultivation and preparation) and you can request the vaccine to be in a preferred form (oral or injections). I got 10 injections (subcutaneous). There are labs in Europe that can produce it - I am based in Prague so there is a lab here, there is a lab in Poland and a lab in Ukraine directly at the Medical University. The purpose of the vaccine is to force your body to produce special antibodies that will work against particular bacteria strain (from your samples). One more thing, the lab will not produce the vaccine unless they are able to cultivate the same bacteria in 2 independent tests (or unless you provide them with old lab-results and it will be 100% match). It helped me a lot, my pain is gone, I only have a swollen urethra and 1 lymph node is swollen (I did chlamydia trachomatis blood test and it is 'borderline', PCR-DNA negative, so I launched multi-abx therapy now - Wheldon Protocol to see if I can resolve swollen urethra/lymph node issue with that. Anyway most helpful was the vaccine - I was going to quit my job as I wasnt able to sit, etc, and it resolved that. 

Paul

Hi Paul/novik, this is interesting... presumably this is microphages as was discussed somewhere on here not so long ago.  How long is it since you had the injections?  - the one thing I had seen with regards to this type of treatment was that the longevity of relief was unclear - i.e. if people eventually relapse back. Fingers crossed though!   Was it expensive? & were you able to get  a positive enterrococcus sample every attempt, or were you sometimes clear?       Also, did you have prostate injections at some point as well as the custom vaccine?  Thanks, Dave

Hi Dave, I believe you confuse this autoimmune vaccine with bacteriophages (viruses that kill bacteria). Bacteriophages are mainly available in Tbilisi, Georgia (Eliava Institute) and Poland (Wroclaw Polish Academy of Sciances). Autovaccines are more common, they are available in various forms and they are even branded by big pharmaceutical concerns (Uro-vaxom: auto-vaccine against E.Coli in pills for example). The effectiveness of these ready-to-use vaccines depends on your particular strain - if there is a match or not. In Prague Czech Republic, in Poland (Warsaw, Krakow), and in Ukraine (Odessa) are the laboratories I know and they isolate your bacteria and prepare vaccines in a requested form (oral, nosal, injections). Bacteria isolation in my case was done in Prague but more effective lab work and vaccine production was done in Odessa Ukraine as it was not a commercial lab - the price was higher though. The standard price in Prague (Czech Rep. ) or in Poland is approx 100 EUR for testing (2 samples) and 100 for the vaccine preparation (1 month). The success rate of isolating the bacteria depends on the Lab and the way sample was obtained - in commercial labs there are no doctors that will help you get EPS, so you can only give a sperm sample (which should work but may not give a full picture). In odessa, the doc that did that for me was comming to a motel opposite the University with containers and did EPS, asked for the rest of samples (urine, ejaculate, stool). I have the lab test results in a file and I can share it with you if you PM me. The lab in Prague is not that bad, they indicated main causive-agent / main bacteria but e.g. in Krakow Poland my samples were negative twice even though I copied prague results taken 1 week beforehand (2 independent results, 100% match is required for vaccine production). If you want to learn more - go to google.cz, google.pl, use google chrome browser so you can translate to English - and enter Autovakciny, google.pl: Autoszczepionki. I found these most informative websites about these autovaccines. In Czech: http://www.leklab.cz/autovakciny, Polish: http://www.cbm.com.pl/autoszczepionki_opis.html, Ukrainian: androgen.eu 

The result was immediate after 3rd (out of 10) vaccine in my case, prostate started to secrete liquid, pain was lowered and resolved in the next 2 weeks. I finished 8 months ago. The only problems I have are mentioned above (probably caused by co infection - Chlamydia Trachomatis which is PCR DNA Negative but showing in my blood test results: ELISA test) - swollen urethra and lymph node. The main issue - prostate pain, pain in balls, penis, weak /dry ejaculation is resolved thanks to vaccine. As 1st line treatment I got standard sets: Cipro, Amoxiclav, Azitromycin - long term. One more note - after ABX treatment, when I went to that doc in Ukraine, he found Candida Albicans overrowth in the stool as well and I was taking Nystatin to remove yeast and I was on a strict diet to get rid of that too (it was not detected in EPS, ejaculate though). So take Probiotics guys, garlic, and dont consume sugar. 

In total I spent a lot of money for various doctors, TRUS scans, and other useless procedures, my dad is a biologist and I consulted every decision with him - this one concerning vaccines was 100% supported by him.

One more note: do note confuse therapeutical vaccines (e.g. Enterococcus) with preventative ones (flu) and with Bacteriophages (viruses that kill bacteria). 

Paul

Thankyou Paul for taking the time to reply with detail; yes I was mixing up with bacteriophages. All very useful information for all of us.     So, 8 months clear sounds good, though from experience I would wait a few years before mentally accepting that things are fixed. So you visited all 3 - Ukraine, Poland and your local one.... did you get treatment in each?  I have had a few +ve semen samples with enterococcus over the years, with it showing growing resistance. But it is not consistently detected which could be problematic.  The medical community can't even decide if it should be there or not... the head of microbiology at one of the London hospitals who  also has a special interest in prostatitis once told me that he regarded enterococcus as completely normal. Other stuff/experience suggests otherwise.  

One more question, how long had you suffered with this issue before you had the injections, i.e. how many years?

Thanks, Dave

Hi Dave, no worries. I mentioned 3 labs that I know - I had just 1 set/autovaccine prepared in Odessa, Ukraine - but the concept is the same in all labs - they isolate the bacteria, multiply it over time, kill it in a special way and process it into injections, drops, etc (that's why it takes 1 month). I went to 2 other labs (locally) to confirm test results before I went to Odessa (but I found out that they also have these therapeutical vaccines in their offer). One of the labs (in Krakow) was unable to detect anything, whereas other lab  in Poland confirmed Medium Growth of High Level Gentamycine Resistant (GLGR) Enterococcus faecalis - few days eatlier, the test results were most detailed from Odessa (I can share the file if you PM me with your email). I had suffered for about 1 year before I tried the auto-vaccine (and I had a long term ABX therapy with Cipro, Azithro, Bactrim - standard approach). My doctors said - prostate should be sterile and if the sample is properly taken, it should be sterile. Enterococcus (as per literature I read) is pathogenic in the urogenital system and is one of the root-causes for prostatitis. One interesting study I read was from Polish Academy of Sciences - treating CP Patients with Bacteriophages (with Enterococcus as a causive agent) - I can share the PDF link if you are interested. Isolating pathogen from your EPS should not be an issue in a lab that uses double nutrition media or whatever they call it (it has to be a rich media to make it grow). If you need to act quicker, I believe intra-prostatic injections (but not via rectum - only via pelvic gap/penireum) with properly selected ABX mix (as per Lab results) should do as well!. Good thing about vaccines is that you don't need to be worried about ABX resistance, even if that strain is resistant to most ABX that penetrate prostate relatively well - your blood with antibodies generated by vaccine will get there - constantly, at the same time, strenghtening immune system would speed up the process, I believe. Try to find a good lab locally and ask them to use best media they have, bring fresh samples (EPS, ejaculate, 1st urine), also do the PCR DNA on all that and blood test (ELISA for chlamydia trachomatis: IgA, IgG; Ureaplasma; Mycoplasma; HSV 1,2). 

Paul

Interesting (related) publications:

AutoVaccines: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15346948 (I believe they used a ready-to-use commercial one with several strains included). 

In Poland, there is a commercial Polyvaccinum Forte (available in every pharmacy on prescription): http://www.przychodnia.pl/el/leki.php3?lek=1759

There are more publications/studies on autovaccines but not in English (I am not even sure what is the right key-word, it looks like it's not called autovaccine in English! - do you guys know?).

Bacteriophages: http://www.europeanurology.com/article/S1569-9056(10)60372-7/pdf/37...

http://www.mendeley.com/research/perspectives-application-phage-the...

http://www.uroweb.org/fileadmin/templates/script/File.php?cid=cc1ab4e6

As for bacteriophages, the best place in Rep. of Georgia (Eliava Institute), Wroclaw Poland has a smaller collection of phages to choose from and require too many documents to get the job done: chest x-ray, blood analysis, etc. (EU Commission Regulations).

Thanks.

i believe you are referring to autogenous vaccines ( previously known as autovaccines); from what i see in the US it is only approved for animal vaccination. The publications i see regarding human therapies using this method is for research only. 

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