Dhat syndrome

Dhat syndrome
Classification and external resources
Specialty	psychiatry
ICD-10	F48.8
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Dhat syndrome (Sanskrit: धातु दोष, IAST: Dhātu doṣa) 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. The condition has no known organic etiology.

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.

Many doctors view dhat as 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. Dhat is thought to be a culture-bound syndrome similar to jiryan (South-East Asia), prameha (Sri Lanka), and shen-k'uei (China). Dhat syndrome might be related to other post-orgasmic diseases, such as post-coital tristesse (PCT), postorgasmic illness syndrome (POIS), and sexual headache.

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