folks-

i have corresponded with Nickel, the researcher who has published 200 articles on chronic pelvic pain, including being a co-author with Feliciano in the only publication that quantifies the success of the protocol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10527258&dopt=Citation

(by the way, i suspect that Nickel's specialty is the evaluation of protocols, which explains his large number of articles, many of which are about controlled studies.)

i don't think it is fair to quote him directly, so i'll paraphrase. at the bottom is the letter i sent him.

paraphrasing: his published study of almost 30 men showed a 30% rate of improvement after two years, which is the same response as placebos in clinical trials. doctors who provide this service do very well financially, so there is no validity to the argument that doctors who don't provide it are doing so out of greed. it has worked for some of his patients.

darwin

what i sent him:

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Dear Dr. Nickel-

I am a chronic epididymitis/CPPS patient.

Thank you very much for all of your research effort in this area.

I am actively involved on an Internet forum http://epididymitisfoundation.org/anyboard9/forum/index.html where men share information about treatment options, etc.

There is a raging debate there with one person aggressively advocating that men go to Dr. Feliciano or Dr. Polacheck to receive the Manila Protocol.

Can you provide a short response as to why that protocol seems not to be embraced by the research community?
(a) is their method of "microbial workup" a useful diagnostic or not?
(b) is their method of sustained targeted antibiotics combined with prostate drainage effective or not?
(c) why does there seem to be no new evaluations of the protocol in the literature?
(d) the man on the forum insists that the protocol is effective (he claims it cured him ten years ago) but that it is not practiced because of medical economics reasons. Is there merit to that position?

I am asking these questions out of concern for men who might expend much effort and expense to go to Manila.

Thank you very much,