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Medical Author:

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.

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Medical Editor:

Mary Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP

Mary Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP

Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Michigan State University. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt Medical School, and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Indiana University.

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Next Steps

Follow-up

Follow-up with your health care practitioner to ensure the antibiotics are working.

• If the individual does not respond to antibiotics, he may need an ultrasound (ordered by the doctor or urologist, who is a specialist in genital conditions).
  
  
• It is important to be sure that the condition doesn't progress to become orchitis, an infection of one or both testicles. Orchitis also can result from the spread of bacteria through the blood from other locations in the body. This is called epididymo-orchitis if the epididymitis is also infected.
  
  
• Less commonly, a testicular tumor may be present. An ultrasound or blood test might be needed if tumor is suspected.
  
  
• If epididymitis occurred because of sexual transmission of infectious bacteria, all sex partners of the man should be notified and treated even if they have no current symptoms.