Excessive Sweating - The Gold Standard Treatment
Our modern day world is not free from diseases and discomforts. Some people do suffer from excessive sweating - or in scientific terms hyperhidrosis. This evidently brings a lot of discomforts to them. They’ll need to change their clothes more than once a day, it will limit their freedom of moving around, it will ruin the fabric of their clothing and - most importantly - ruins their self-confidence.
Figures show that nearly 2-3 % of the population suffers from excessive sweating. Underarms, palms and soles are the places where this occurs most. Palms and sole sweating may already begin at a very early age (around 13), while underarm sweating often begins in the late adolescence. Very often it will continue throughout life.
Science knows little about the origin of this complain. Sometimes, it is caused by one or other neurological disease or the metabolism. But most of all it occurs in otherwise healthy people. It may be triggered by heat and strong emotions, but those who suffer from hyperhidrosis sweat nearly all the time.
Luckily, there are things that can be done to get rid of this nasty occurrence. Otherwise, it’s going to be a hard to live a quality life, with all that sweating going on.
Hyperhidrosis Clinics can assess the severity of the patient’s condition by a qualitative measurement on the Hyperhidrosis Disease Scale or HDSS, and it is based on how it affects their daily life. A score of 1-2 indicates mild sweating, while 3-4 is more severe. The score will help the specialist to decide which treatment to prescribe.
The best treatment is with Botox hyperhidrosis, as it is proven that other treatments are not always that effective. In fact, surgery can result in compensatory excessive sweating in other parts of the body, in about 30-40 % of the patients.
This will not happen when given a treatment with Botox injections. This is also named the Golden Standard Treatment. Using a very fine needle, a small amount of a solution of Botox is injected into ten or fifteen places, about 1,5 to 2 cm apart and spread evenly in each area. This causes only minimal discomfort. It just may sting lightly.
What will Botox do? It is a protein that will bind to the nerves that control the sweating in the skin and will reduce the sweating in the injected area for 6 to 12 months without compensatory effects.
A course usually lasts 6 to 8 months. The clinics will mostly administer 100 units (50 units per side) for underarm & palmer excessive sweating, to ensure the best result.
When you consider the cost of buying new clothes and deodorants, a treatment with Botox is not expensive at all, and patients who have used it are more than satisfied.