Shocking Therapy for Pelvic Pain: Evaluation of Shock Wave Therapy to Treat Chronic Pelvic Pain in Men

Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is an extremely common urologic diagnosis and accounts for approximately 2 million outpatient visits to urology practices in the United States alone. Up to 6% of men in Canada recently experienced at least moderate to severe prostatitis-like symptoms with two thirds having symptoms lasting more than one year. There are a myriad of therapies for prostatitis, some of which work on some of the men but none works for all the men. Recently, a number of centres have been using low energy shock waves applied on the skin to target the prostate and the muscles around the prostate. The initial reports showed a significant reduction in the pain experienced by the men with prostatitis. However, this potentially highly promising therapy has not been widely used at least in part due to a lack of properly designed studies to validate this therapy. The investigators plan a randomized control trial using shock wave therapy on men with prostatitis. The goal is to provide some solid evidence that either shock waves are or are not of clinical benefit.

The investigators hypothesize men with chronic prostatitis/ chronic pelvic pain syndrome will have a reduction in pain and improved voiding and sexual function following low power transdermal shock wave therapy to the prostate and surrounding pelvic muscles.