Excessive Sweating Treatment

Excessive sweating affects about ten million people in America each year. What defines excessive sweating in an individual? Constant sweating that may be inconsistent through a week but can last for days and the sweat can pour throughout a whole day, regardless of temperature and season, are a few of the defining characteristics of excessive sweating. Over sweating from underarms, sweaty palms and other areas which can cause discomfort and can even be embarrassing leads to many embarassing situations and can cause many headaches in the workplace, home life and social events. We haven’t even began to talk about the body odor possibilities from excessive sweating (that’s for another post on another day). Hyperhidrosis and the resulting excessive sweating can lead people to some extremes.

Lindsay Lohan has reportedly denied the rumors that she has botoxed her armpits, and confesses she does know someone who has gotten botox shots for their excessive sweating. She also claims that after the botox treatment for excessive sweating, her friend sweat more on her nose and face, which is a common side effect of the hyperhidrosis treatments. Botox is an excessive treatment for most cases of hyperhidrosis and has a spotty history of complications. It’s also a very expensive procedure for hyperhidrosis.

Botox for Excessive Underarm Sweating: Part of Hyperhidrosis History

FDA approved Botox back in 2004 to treat severe and excessive underarm sweating known as primary axillary hyperhidrosis. The hyperhidrosis procedure was at first meant for those who’s excessive sweating cannot be managed by strong topical agents (treatments that are applied to the surface of the skin) such as prescription antiperspirants. Botox for hyperhidrosis involves the injection of about 20-25 drops of Botox directly into the skin where the sweating problem occurs. Often times, in the span of 48 hours after the hyperhidrosis treatment, some people have shown remarkable results of up to an 80% decrease in excessive sweating in the sweating problem area. In the span of a week later, the sweating problem maybe resolved in a sizeable percentage of the people. Bad odor coming from excessive sweating of course also disappears as the two are like the conjoined twins of the sweating world. Cutting one sweating problem away will invariably lead to the death of the other in most cases.

The hyperhidrosis treatment has a few killer drawbacks. It is cost prohibitive as the procedure is quite a bit more then the average person can afford. Furthermore, to add to the cost, Botox for hyperhidrosis, is a temporary fix. Yes, you read that correctly. The hyperhidrosis procedure has to be repeated in 6-12 months for the maintenance of the sweating problem. There have also been heavier sweating in other areas after the treatment for excessive sweating. This sweating ‘karma effect’ has been reported often by patients of the hyperhidrosis procedure. The side effects of Botox treatments for hyperhidrosis is so numerous that we’ll be dedicating a whole post to this sweating treatment topic in our next post: Botox for Excessive Sweating: Part Two.

Another limitation of the Botox solution to excessive sweating is that it can only really be applied to the armpits or underarm area. For example, with palm sweating or palmar hyperhidrosis, Botox is really too painful of a procedure to be practical. The discomfort of the process of the hyperhidrosis treatment in other areas of the body confines the procedure to the armpit area. So painful is it in other areas, most doctors will not even list it as an option for other areas of the body that excessively sweat.

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