If you’ve ever shaken someone’s hand and come away with a hand full of sweat, you know what a problem excessive sweating can be. The medical name for it is hyperhidrosis. People with problem sweating have a hyperactive reaction to stimulation of the sweat glands. Normal everyday encounters, such as holding or shaking someone’s hands, are embarrassing.
Sufferers fear any situation that may require hand contact, impacting on workplace interactions and having devastating effects on social interaction with the opposite sex. Different bodily areas of problem sweating vary, but palmar sweating is most difficult to control and most troubling. Many people also have excessive sweating on the soles of their feet and in their armpits
A 23-year-old tells Allure magazine, “I don’t even have wrinkles, and I’ve had Botox twice. I wasn’t trying to look better through the miracle of science; I was actually trying to smell better.” She had excessive sweating since her teenage years, especially under her arms. She always worried about playing sports and when the temperature soared at a party.
She asked her doctor if Botox could dry up her underarms and wound up getting 20 injections in each armpit. The result was six months of nearly “sweat-free bliss”; her sweating was reduced to about 20 percent of what it had been pretreatment. The temperatures this summer sent her right back for more Botox. She now walks the two blocks from subway to office and arrives, “calm, cool and dry.”
If you have this problem, Allure outlines the basics:
(1) Make sure your doctor is board-certified in an appropriate specialty.
(2) Expect that you will need treatment twice a year.
(3) If you’re diagnosed with hyperhidrosis, your insurer may pay a portion of the treatment.
(4) You will need about 15 to 20 injections for each underarm and you will be sore for about an hour.
(5) Don’t worry about the sweating shifting to other body parts; it doesn’t.
You can undergo this treatment with confidence. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), Botox was FDA approved for underarm sweating in 2004.