| Dhat syndrome | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-10 | F48.8 |
Dhat syndrome is a condition found in the cultures of the Indian subcontinent in which male patients report that they suffer from premature ejaculation or impotence, and believe that they are passing semen in their urine.
In traditional Hindu spirituality, semen is described as a "vital fluid". The discharge of this "vital fluid", either through sex or masturbation, is associated with marked feelings of anxiety and dysphoria. Often the patient describes the loss of a whitish fluid while passing urine. At other times, marked feelings of guilt associated with what the patient assumes is "excessive" masturbation are noted.
This is based on an old Hindu belief that it takes forty drops of blood to create a drop of bone marrow and forty drops of bone marrow to create a drop of sperm.
Dhat is a folk diagnostic term used in India to refer to anxiety and hypochondriacal concerns associated with the discharge of semen, with discoloration of the urine, and feelings of weakness and exhaustion. This cultural bound syndrome is similar to jiryan.
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Young males are most often affected, though similar symptoms have been reported in females with excessive vaginal discharge or leucorrhea, which is also considered a "vital fluid".
Premature ejaculation and impotence are commonly seen. Other somatic symptoms like weakness, easy fatiguability, palpitations, insomnia, low mood, guilt and anxiety are often present. Males sometimes report a subjective feeling that their penises have shortened.
Some doctors believe dhat syndrome to be either a culture-bound presentation of clinical depression,[1] as a somatized set of symptoms, or a result of Western doctors' misinterpretation of patients' descriptions of their condition.
It is very common in Nepali culture as well. Most of them come with the complaints of "drops" and become extremely anxious about it and see it as loss of "male power". It is often related with obsessive ruminations and somatoform symptoms. Others see it as a distinct clinical entity which is less culture-bound than these critics assert, and describe it as one form of a syndrome of "semen-loss anxiety" which also occurs in other Eastern cultures as jiryan and shen-k'uei, as well as in Western cultures.
Chlamydia infection might also be related to it because of similar symptoms in case of infection of the urethra (urethritis), which is usually symptomatic, causing a white discharge from the penis with or without pain on urinating (dysuria).
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the mainstay of treatment.
At other times counseling, anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications have been shown to be of use.