Nightfall (Diagnosis)

How can nocturnal emissions be diagnosed?

As discussed earlier, since this is not a disease, there is not a lot a person can do to diagnose this condition.

No help: It is mostly not caused due to any physical problem. A scan such as an X-Ray, CT scan, or an MRI cannot necessarily find the existence of this condition.

Self-diagnosis:

• It is the only way one can actually confirm that they are facing this issue.

• There is only one physical proof to understand the existence of this condition, and that is the secretion of the excess seminal fluid due to an involuntary ejaculation or orgasm faced in sleep.

• If there is a sticky discharge in the undergarments, it is a sign that there has been semen secretion, and one should understand that they might have experienced a nightfall.

Other possible symptoms:

• Many patients also raise multiple somatic and psychological complaints such as fatigue, loss of appetite, lack of physical strength, poor concentration and forgetfulness.

• These symptoms are usually related to an anxious and dysphoric mood.

• Some patients may also face psychosexual dysfunction.

Many research papers on this condition found that people diagnosed with this condition were young, recently married and mostly belonged to low socioeconomic background like a student or a farmer from rural areas who has a conservative attitude towards sex.

According to NCBI, people with this condition can also be placed in three different categories.

Dhat alone: Patients accredited their symptoms to semen loss, showing depressive or anxiety symptoms.

Dhat with depression and anxiety: Dhat syndrome was seen to be an accompanying symptom along with comorbid depression or anxiety.

Dhat with sexual dysfunction: some patients also experienced this syndrome along with some sort of sexual dysfunction like premature ejaculation.

Additional conditions:

The most common psychosexual dysfunctions faced by people diagnosed with dhat syndrome include erectile dysfunction in 22-62% of the patients and premature ejaculation in 22-44% of the patients.

Considering psychiatric disorders among those diagnosed with dhat syndrome, 40-42% suffered from depressive neurosis, 21-38% from anxiety neurosis, while 32-40% complained of somatoform/hypochondriasis.