Dhat Roga Or Dhat Syndrome - What Is It?

As per the vedic scriptures the word 'Dhat' has been derived from the word Dhatus which refers to body fluids. So dhat syndrome usually refers to a clinical condition where men attribute extreme degrees of tiredness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, impotence as well as general loss of fertility because of semen loss. So sometimes men lose semen during their sleep, during their masturbation cycles or during sexual intercourse. 

Men who developed dhat syndrome attribute tiredness, fatigue and erectile dysfunction especially with loss of their semen. Semen has been considered as the most precious among all the body fluids according to the vedic scriptures as well as the ayurvedic texts. The patients often describe that they lose semen while urinating. Patients often have the feeling of guilt which they often associate with the process of masturbation. We don't really know how common dhat syndrome is because it is seen more prevalently in certain cultures. So dhat syndrome is seen in Indian men, Pakistani men, men from Bangladesh, China etc. Although dhat syndrome has been reported in Russian men and European men also but the studies are very scarce. There are only 45 to 50 published studies on this particular condition called dhat syndrome. 

So the next question which arises is what are the symptoms of dhat syndrome? 

A typical patient with dhat syndrome who comes to the clinic is of the age group of 18 to 25 years generally. About 40% of the patients would have experienced some symptoms of dhat syndrome. Symptoms of dhat syndrome which the patients report include feeling extreme degree of tiredness, lack of motivation, feeling of excessive fatigue, extreme anxiety, rest tremors, feeling of nervousness. The patients feel rejected all the time, they feel like life is not worth living. They go into full fledged clinical depression. They also have anxiety attacks. They suffer from severe erectile dysfunction and they attribute all this to the loss of semen which is a very important body fluid. Discoloration of urine may also be reported by some patients. 

Nocturnal emissions commonly known as nightfall are also seen in some patients. This condition is also seen in females. In females excess vaginal discharge is reported which is also considered as a vital fluid. Patients feel that loss of excessive fluid will lead to decrease in their sexual performance. In Indian culture it is very important for a man to produce semen and preserving semen in the body would improve the health and increase the lifespan of an individual. The loss of semen is considered harmful and is considered as an act of inferior class. Hence, loss of semen by any method creates a psychological impact on the patient. 

We actually don't know the actual cause of dhat syndrome and why it develops in the youngsters but to a large extent what we do know is that it develops because of lack of sex education and culturally meditated orthodox beliefs. Dhat Syndrome has been recently classified as a clinical disorder by the ICD 10 manual. Dhat syndrome is very different and most of the legal practitioners or practitioners of clinical medicine do not acknowledge the importance of this disease.

So the last question which we are going to answer in this article is how can dhat syndrome be treated? Once a patient is diagnosed with dhat syndrome treatments are fairly straightforward. The treatment includes giving the patients anti anxiety medications and anti depressant medications. They also need to undergo psycho sexual counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy which is also called CBT. Now a combination of medicines and cognitive behavioural therapy along with sex education or psycho sexual counselling usually helps the patients to recover very easily from the particular clinical condition. 

If the patients are however not treated, what happens is, the patients suffer even after marriage. As there is lack of awareness even among the general practitioners about dhat syndrome a large number of patients suffer from chronic fatigue, chronic erectile dysfunction even into their marriage because they are not properly educated about their own sexuality. It is just a lack of knowledge more than anything else. The anxiety and the depression symptoms of the patients are not controlled properly. These conditions are clinically very manageable and the most common problem which we are seeing nowadays is that there is lack of awareness among the general practitioners, fertility experts that such a disease even exists.