Many patients don’t know about the differences between epididymitis and orchitis. Therefore the two kinds of diseases are often confused with each other by the patients. To know the difference between epididymitis and ochitis, first, we need to know about epididymis and testicle.

Testicle and epididymis are both important internal reproductive organs of male. Each man has two testicles and two epididymis. Both testicle and epididymis grow in the scrotum. The head of epididymis is linked up with testicle. Testicle is the birthplace of sperm. Sperm comes into being in the seminiferous tubules in testicle. Then it goes into epididymis and stays until it develops into maturity.

As we can guess from the terms themselves, epididymitis refers to the inflammation in epididymis while orchitis refers to the inflammation in testicle. The invasion sites of these two diseases are different. This is the first and most important difference between epididymitis and orchitis.

Secondly, the causes of epididymitis and orchitis are quite different. Epididymitis is often caused by bacterial infection or other genital diseases. Orchitis can be caused by both bacterial infection and virus infection. The rate of bacterial infection in testicle is rather low because testicle has strong resistant ability towards bacteria with enough supply of blood and lymph. Bacterial orchitis is often resulted from bacterial epididymitis near testicle. Viruses can invade into testicle directly. The most common type is mumps virus. Usually after a short time of mumps, patients are diagnosed with virus orchitis.

Thirdly, the symptoms of epididymitis and orchitis are different. Epididymitis can be divided into acute epididymitis and chronic epididymitis. The symptoms of acute epididymitis include sudden occurrence of high fever, strong pain in the affected side of epididymis, swelling pain and bearing-down pain in the affected side of scrotum, referred pain the lower abdomen and groin. The symptoms of chronic epididymitis include dull pain or swelling and bearing-down pain in the affected side of scrotum, pain in the lower abdomen and groin of the same side. Chronic epididymitis is more common then acute epididymitis. Orchitis can be divided into acute suppurative orchitis, chronic orchitis, mumps-related orchitis, and non-specific orchitis. Among these types of orchitis, acute suppurative orchitis is the most common. The main symptoms of orchitis include pain in testicle, scrotum and groin, redness and swelling in scrotum and scrotal hydrocele, high fever and chills.

Herbal medicine Diuretic and anti-inflammation pill can be used to treat male genital diseases including epididymitis and orchitis. This medicine has properties of clearing away heat and toxins, improving blood and Qi flow, inducing diuresis to relieve stranguria. With the help of this medicine, the inflammation can be removed completely with no recurrence.

If you want to know more about epididymitis and orchitis, you can click this link: http://www.diureticspill.com/Medical_Use/Orchitis_Epididymitis/

You can consult relative questions by sending e-mail to Dr. Lee via the address [email protected].