Excessive Sweating: Suggested Solutions

Hyperhidrosis is excessive sweating. Excess sweating can be extremely debilitating for both women and men. It is excessive sweating or sweating especially in the armpits (under the arms), in the hands, feet sometimes even in the buttocks or chest.

Hyperhidrosis in the armpits is very embarrassing, but it is also in the hands and feet, preventing people from wearing proper shoes, shaking hands and having a normal social life.

It is a treatment that is currently facilitated by new molecules.

Hyperhidrosis before the 80s was a purely psychological treatment or even with drugs that reduced some of the stress and sweating, but which had undesirable effects.

The reasons for excessive sweating

It must also be recognized that there is often a very important psychological component to hyperhidrosis. It is often found in young individuals or in any case extremely stressed with the notion of hyperemotivity or excessive anxiety. This excessive sweating manifests itself every day or sometimes in flare-ups.

Before the 80s, the only solution was a radical solution, it was a sympathectomy. But sympathectomy is a heavy intervention which is gradually being abandoned.

Indeed, it is necessary to reach the sympathetic nerve which runs in the upper part of the spine at the level of the thorax, an intervention generally carried out by thoracic surgeons.

The intervention can be done by endoscopy but it is not without side effects because the section of the sympathetic nerve can lead to irremediable consequences and in particular a very embarrassing compensatory excessive sweating in other parts of the body. Moreover, if the sympathectomy was performed to treat disabling excessive sweating of the hands (patients in whom the hands are dripping), these patients may end up with calloused, dry, prematurely aged hands whose palmar surface thickens.

What solutions for excessive sweating?

Botulinum toxin

Botulinum toxin for hyperhidrosis currently remains the best treatment. This is an extremely simple treatment for the armpits, buttocks, stomach and back.

It is a little more complicated at the level of the hands and the arch of the foot, it is an extremely sensitive area, it is then necessary to inject the botulinum toxin by diluting it with micro-needles like a mesotherapy technique, which allows inject after application of the local anesthetic which will not interfere with the patient's movements in the hours that follow.

This type of botox treatment is offered and performed by Doctor Bergeret Galley in Paris

Iontophoresis

Iontophoresis is still an effective technique, you can buy an individual device. It has to be done every day: you bathe your hands in a bath in which waves pass, an electric current. This process calms the sweat glands, but the effect is temporary.

Other solutions

The other techniques are related to relaxation, meditation, certain anxiolytic treatments and psychological care also help reduce hyperhidrosis.

A new technique has appeared which in my opinion is only useful in axillary excessive sweating resistant to botulinum toxin. This is a recent Miradry device. After identification with small dots marked in the armpits, an infiltration with local anesthetic is carried out and electromagnetic waves are transmitted using an energy source to neutralize the sweat glands. You should also look for a thyroid problem or a diabetes problem. But most of the time the cause of this hyperhidrosis is idiopathic, with no pathological reason found.