Excessive Underarm Sweating
Sweating is a natural process of the human body, helping to reduce the temperature of the body when it starts to overheat. This happens during exercise, because of the environmental, or through illness such as having a fever. When the body overheats the cells in our tissue get damaged, so by releasing water through sweating helps to cool the body down to it’s normal temperature. However, some people suffer from excessive sweating, and especially underarm sweating, which can be very embarrassing for them.
Sweating Problem: Hyperhydrosis
This type of sweating problem is known as hyperhydrosis. It can be localized or generalized for an individual suffer. Localization of the underarm is one of the most common places for excessive sweating. People who have this condition sweat naturally when their body needs to cool down, but also sweat under normal conditions. It can be aggravated by anxiety, and because they start sweating they can feel stressed which causing more sweating. Excessive sweating of the underarms and hands can be an embarrassing trait, and many suffers try to avoid shaking hands or meeting with people where they might have to take off their jacket. Excessive sweating is often not difficult to manage; there are a number of treatments available.
Treatments for Excessive Sweating
Medication – Using strong antiperspirant is an easy and effective way for most people to reduce excessive underarm sweating, it is less effective for other parts of the body. There are several drug products that can be injected or taken orally to reduce sweating; these forms of medications can be used to very effectively reduce excessive underarm and other sweating.
Surgical Procedures – A much more long lasting method is to have surgery performed on the body to reduce excessive sweating. Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy (ETS) is the main procedure to reduce sweating with satisfaction rates of 49 – 100%. There are also some other newer procedure which target certain localizations of excessive sweating. Surgical means are generally only used if all medications fail to manage the problem.
Other methods – There are some less targeted techniques to help with excessive sweating. These include meditation, hypnosis, other relaxation methods, iontophoresis and talcum powder. The hypnosis and relaxation methods are an indirect way to reduce anxiety and stress which in turn will have a positive impact on excessive sweating. Iontophoresis is much like electrolysis, the issue body part is placed in a device with two containers of water, a small current is passed through the water via the body parts. The minerals in the water block some of the sweat glands in the process which reduces the amount of sweating.
Any of the above treatments will help reduce or completely alleviate excessive underarm sweating, but be sure to consult your doctor first and find out about any allergies you may have before you decide to go ahead.
