The vocabulary, in one or two sentences a term

Consultations move fast and test reports are written for colleagues, not patients. This list defines the words that come up around prostatitis and pelvic pain: what each means, and where you will meet it.

Last updated: October 2026Sources checked: October 2026

Medical notice. These are definitions, nothing more. A word defined here carries no implication that it applies to you, and recognising your symptoms in an entry is not the same as having the condition it names. Read the notice in full.

Terms are grouped by first letter, with abbreviations at the end. Where a word is routinely misread, the entry says what it does not mean as well.

What this list is for

It exists so that none of the four notes needs a second tab open beside it, and so that a clinic letter can be read without stopping. A glossary defines words; it does not diagnose. If an entry seems to describe your situation, that is a reason to raise it with a clinician, not a conclusion.

A

Acute bacterial prostatitis: Category I of the NIH scheme: a bacterial infection of the gland that builds over hours, with fever and heavy urinary symptoms. It is treated as a same-day problem. More in note 01.
Alpha-blocker: A class of medicine that relaxes smooth muscle at the bladder neck and within the prostate, easing the passage of urine rather than treating pain. Trial results in the chronic form are mixed.
Antibiotic: A medicine that kills bacteria or stops them multiplying. It is the point of treating the two bacterial categories, and has no established benefit where repeated cultures find nothing. More in note 03.
Anti-inflammatory: A class of medicine that damps the inflammatory response. Some people get useful short-term relief; it is not a treatment for the underlying syndrome.
Asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis: Category IV: inflammatory cells found in prostate tissue, semen or urine in somebody with no complaints at all, almost always while something else was being investigated. More in note 01.

B

Benign prostatic hyperplasia: Age-related growth of the gland, narrowing the channel urine leaves by. It shares urinary symptoms with prostatitis, but is not inflammatory, and benign means what it says: not cancer.
Bladder neck: The muscular ring where the bladder opens into the urethra. It has to relax before urine will pass; one that stays shut gives a weak or interrupted stream.

C

Central sensitisation: A state in which the spinal cord and brain turn up the gain on incoming signals, so ordinary sensation from the bladder or bowel arrives as pain. It accounts for pain that outlives whatever set it off.
Chronic bacterial prostatitis: Category II: a low-grade bacterial population living in the gland, surfacing periodically as what looks like a urinary infection, usually with the same organism on each report. More in note 01.
Chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS): Category III, and roughly nine diagnoses in ten: pelvic pain of three months or more with no organism demonstrable on testing. No treatment is established as a reliable cure, though many people improve substantially. More in note 01.
Clinical guideline: A document in which a professional body sets out what the published evidence supports, graded by its strength.
Cystoscopy: Inspection of the urethra and bladder lining through a thin telescope. Done to exclude other explanations; it cannot show chronic prostatitis.

D

Digital rectal examination: A clinician feels the back of the prostate with a gloved finger through the rectal wall, judging size, texture and tenderness. On its own it is not a test for cancer.
Dipstick: A chemical strip dipped in urine, reading out within a minute for blood, protein and markers of infection. It screens rather than confirms: a culture settles whether bacteria are there.
Dyspareunia: Pain during sexual intercourse. The word records the symptom and implies nothing at all about its cause.
Dysuria: Pain, burning or stinging while passing urine. It describes a sensation only; infection is one of several causes.

E

Ejaculatory duct: The short channel carrying semen from the seminal vesicle and vas deferens into the urethra, running through the prostate on its way.
Epididymitis: Inflammation of the coiled tube behind the testicle, giving scrotal pain and swelling that localises more tightly than prostatic pain does.

F

Flare: A stretch of days or weeks when symptoms climb above a person's own baseline, then subside. Flares are expected in the chronic form, not evidence that it is worsening. More in note 04.
Four-glass test (Meares–Stamey): The reference method for locating an organism: four samples — first urine, mid-stream urine, prostatic fluid obtained by massage, and the urine passed afterwards — cultured separately. Thorough, slow, and now often replaced by the shorter version. More in note 02.

H

Haematuria: Blood in the urine, either visible or detected only on testing. Visible blood that is new to you warrants assessment whatever else is going on.
Hesitancy: A delay between intending to urinate and the stream actually starting.

I

Incomplete emptying: The feeling that the bladder still holds urine once you have finished. Sensation and the volume actually left behind often disagree, which is why the volume is measured separately.
Interstitial cystitis / bladder pain syndrome: Persistent bladder pain with frequency and no infection to account for it. It overlaps the chronic prostatitis picture so heavily that the label applied often turns on where the pain is felt most.

M

Mid-stream urine: A sample caught after the first part of the stream has been let go, so organisms living harmlessly in the urethra are less likely to reach the laboratory.
Multimodal treatment: Running several treatments at once, each aimed at a different mechanism, rather than one after another. It is the usual approach to the chronic form, since single treatments rarely achieve much alone. More in note 03.
Muscle relaxant: A class of medicine meant to reduce sustained muscle tension, considered where an over-contracted pelvic floor looks like the main driver.
Myofascial release: Hands-on treatment directed at tight bands in muscle and the connective tissue wrapping it, delivered by a physiotherapist trained in pelvic work.

N

Nerve block: Local anaesthetic injected around a nerve, used chiefly to establish whether that nerve is carrying the pain. Any relief is normally temporary.
Neuromodulation: Techniques that alter nerve signalling using electrical current or magnetic fields. The pelvic pain trials are small and the evidence is preliminary.
Neuropathic pain agent: A class of medicine developed for pain generated by the nervous system rather than by damaged tissue. Considered where pain has a burning or electrical character; the evidence in pelvic pain is thin.
NIH classification: The four numbered categories published after a 1995 consensus workshop at the United States National Institutes of Health, which retired “prostatitis” as a single diagnosis. More in note 01.
NIH-CPSI: The NIH Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index: nine questions scoring pain, urinary trouble and the effect on daily life. Its value is comparison with the same person's earlier score.
Nocturia: Waking from sleep to pass urine. Once or twice a night is common with age, so what counts is the change from your own pattern.

O

Overactive bladder: Urgency and frequency, sometimes with leakage, caused by the bladder muscle contracting when it should be still. The complaints overlap with prostatitis; the mechanism and treatment do not.

P

Pain neuroscience education: Structured teaching about how the nervous system produces pain, on the evidence that understanding the mechanism reduces fear and the pain itself. It counts as a treatment, not reassurance.
Painful ejaculation: Pain during ejaculation or in the hours after it. One of the features that most usefully separates prostatitis-type pain from a purely urinary complaint.
Pelvic floor: The sheet of muscle slung across the base of the pelvis, holding up the bladder and bowel. It must let go for urine to flow, and contracts at orgasm.
Pelvic floor physiotherapy: Assessment and treatment of pelvic muscle tension by a physiotherapist with specific training, combining manual work with breathing and deliberate relaxation. One of the better supported approaches here. More in note 03.
Perineum: The area between the scrotum and the anus, where the prostate comes closest to the surface. The commonest single site at which this pain is reported.
Peripheral sensitisation: Heightened sensitivity in the nerve endings at the site of the trouble, so ordinary pressure or stretch registers as painful. Distinct from central sensitisation, which happens in the spinal cord and brain.
Phytotherapy: Treatment using preparations derived from plants. A few have been through trials here with modest results; the preparations vary enormously and are not standardised.
Placebo response: Real improvement following a treatment with no active mechanism behind it. It runs high in pelvic pain trials, which is why uncontrolled reports of success prove so little.
Post-massage urine test: Urine passed immediately after prostatic massage, examined for bacteria and inflammatory cells. Set against the sample given beforehand, it indicates whether the gland is the source.
Post-void dribbling: A small leak in the minute or two after finishing, from urine left standing in the urethra rather than from a weak bladder.
Post-void residual: The volume of urine still in the bladder after urinating, measured by ultrasound. A large residual points towards obstruction, or a bladder not contracting properly.
Prostate: A secretory gland of roughly twenty grams below the bladder and in front of the rectum, with the first stretch of the urethra running through it. Its recognised job is making part of the fluid in semen.
Prostate gland zones: The regions the gland divides into: peripheral, central and transition, with a band of fibrous muscle at the front. Different conditions start in different zones.
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA): A protein made by the prostate and measurable in blood. Inflammation, infection, recent examination and recent ejaculation all push the figure up, so a raised result during prostatitis is not a cancer result — it is a reason to repeat the test once matters have settled. More in note 02.
Prostatic fluid: The secretion the gland contributes to semen, carrying enzymes and nutrients sperm rely on. Collected for testing, it is called expressed prostatic secretion.
Prostatitis: Read literally, inflammation of the prostate. Used clinically, a label covering four conditions of which only two are infections, so the word alone does not say what anybody has. More in note 01.
Pudendal nerve: The principal nerve supplying the perineum and genitals. Irritation or compression along its course gives pain with a characteristic pattern: worse sitting, easier standing.

R

Randomised controlled trial: A study in which participants are allocated by chance to the treatment or a comparison, so the groups differ only in what they were given. The strongest single design for deciding whether something works.
Referred pain: Pain felt somewhere other than where it arises, because signals from several structures converge on the same segments of spinal cord. Prostatic pain turning up in a testicle or the lower back is the rule here. More in note 01.

S

Semen: The fluid released at ejaculation: sperm from the testicles with secretions from the seminal vesicles and prostate.
Seminal vesicles: Two pouches behind the bladder that supply most of the volume of semen, emptying into the ejaculatory ducts.
Suprapubic: Describing the region low in the abdomen just above the pubic bone, where bladder-centred pain is usually felt.
Systematic review: A method of collecting every study that meets stated criteria and appraising them together, so a conclusion does not rest on whichever trial somebody read first.

T

Transrectal ultrasound: Imaging of the prostate with a probe placed in the rectum. Used to look for an abscess, stones or a structural abnormality, not to confirm prostatitis.
Trigger point: A tender knot in a taut band of muscle that hurts when pressed and sends pain elsewhere — in the pelvic floor, often to the penis, a testicle or the rectum. More in note 04.
Two-glass test: A shortened localisation test using urine from before and after prostatic massage. Less complete than the four-glass method, far more often performed, and sufficient in most situations.

U

UPOINT: A framework scoring a person across six domains — urinary, psychosocial, organ-specific, infection, neurological and tenderness of the pelvic muscles — so treatment can be pointed at those actually present. More in note 03.
Urethra: The tube carrying urine from the bladder out of the body. Its first section passes through the prostate, which is why the gland affects the stream at all.
Urethritis: Inflammation of the urethra, often caused by a sexually transmitted infection. It gives burning on urination and sometimes a discharge, and is tested for in its own right.
Urgency: A sudden compelling need to urinate that is difficult to put off. Not the same thing as frequency, although the two usually arrive together.
Urinary frequency: Passing urine more often than is normal for you, characteristically in small amounts each time.
Urinary tract infection: Bacterial infection of the bladder or urethra. Infections that keep returning in the same man prompt a clinician to look at the prostate as a reservoir. More in note 02.
Urine culture: Growing a urine sample in the laboratory to establish whether bacteria are present, which organism it is, and which antibiotics act on it.
Uroflowmetry: A test recording the rate at which urine leaves, drawn as a curve. It shows whether the stream is obstructed, though not what is obstructing it.

W

Weak stream: A flow with noticeably less force than you are used to, sometimes stopping and restarting. One of the lower urinary tract symptoms, specific to no one cause.

Numbers and abbreviations

5-ARI: Five-alpha-reductase inhibitor: a class of medicine that shrinks prostate tissue over months by blocking a hormone conversion inside the gland. It belongs to the management of enlargement, not of pain.
AUA: American Urological Association, whose guidance is the reference across North America.
BPH: Benign prostatic hyperplasia.
CP/CPPS: Chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome, which is Category III.
DRE: Digital rectal examination.
EAU: European Association of Urology, publisher of the guidelines on urological infections and chronic pelvic pain.
LUTS: Lower urinary tract symptoms: the collective name for frequency, urgency, nocturia, hesitancy, weak stream and incomplete emptying. It implies nothing about cause.
NIH-CPSI: NIH Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index.
PSA: Prostate-specific antigen.
PVR: Post-void residual.
UPOINT: The six domains of the symptom profile: urinary, psychosocial, organ-specific, infection, neurological, tenderness.
UTI: Urinary tract infection.

Met a word that is not here?

The list covers the vocabulary the four notes use, so it has gaps. If you met a term in a clinic letter and cannot find it above, write to us and we will add it. Please keep your own results and symptoms out of it: we cannot interpret them, and email is not secure.

Definitions are written from the sources listed with the notes themselves, last checked in October 2026. See also our editorial method.