> seems to be what his whole practice is based upon

I know what you're worried about.

- The trigger point girls are sure EVERYONE who sees them has pelvic muscle disorder.

- Toth usually (always?) finds infection.

- A certain team of doctors in Houston, Texas, always explains our problem as a "nerve entrapment" disorder, especially if you have a history of bicycling or weight lifting (and promptly performs a very nasty surgery).

- Dr. Bihari in NYC thinks chronic epididymitis is "nearly always" an autoimmune disorder for which he nearly always prescribes a low dose of naltrexone...

- some uros automatically assume that every male over age 50 has Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia; and they treat it with Flomax without even bothering to check for infection.

So I understand why you might think that Doc Kaufman finds IC everywhere.

I can only say that Kaufman's had plenty of opportunities to push expensive tests on me, but he decided from day one that my prostate was swollen, and that infection was likely the cause. 5 weeks of Levaquin mostly fixed my prostate which made his infection diagnosis likely to be accurate. (I still have epididymal and other pains down there).

I have no idea how often Dr. Kaufman finds any particular ailment, but in my case he never mentioned IC, and never suggested any procedure outside of a semen culture. He never even encouraged things like a transrectal sonogram which would not be crazy for someone like me who responds to antibiotics with long term but incomplete improvement.

For me it is infection, for you possible IC, and for one other patient of Kaufman's he said most likley muscle spasm alone. My impression is Kaufman fits the diagnosis to the patient.

Did Doc K say what your prognosis is? My guess is IC after an infection would be considered an autoimmune response (the way "Reiter's" can follow chlamydia). That might not be a bad thing. In the Chlamydia-Reiter's example, once the chlamydia is killed the Reiter's reaction to it usually goes away after awhile.

- Carlos