Do you suffer from excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis? If you do, you know how embarrassing it can be. You can be in the middle of an important business presentation when you suddenly realize your hands or underarms are covered in sweat. Maybe you’re sitting down with your relatives at a holiday and your armpits become uncomfortably damp.
Do you suffer from excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis? If you do, you know how embarrassing it can be. You can be in the middle of an important business presentation when you suddenly realize your hands or underarms are covered in sweat.
Maybe you’re sitting down with your relatives at a holiday and your armpits become uncomfortably damp. Or maybe you always feel the slight tingle of sweat. No matter what triggers it, everyone who experiences this wants to know how to stop sweating.
Hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating, is actually more common than you’d think. What triggers it tends to vary from person to person. Some find themselves sweating during moments of stress, especially work related.
Others find themselves suffering from excessive sweating at night. Sleeping with no blankets and with a fan blowing cool air at them doesn’t help—they still wake up covered in sweat. Others don’t sweat until they’re out in the heat. Many of these people are perfectly healthy otherwise, and they find themselves very stressed and annoyed that there is little they can do to stop excessive sweating.
How can one tell if they have excessive sweating and need to find a way to stop it? Well, it’s hard to tell just how much sweat is too much. The basic definition of excessive sweating is when it goes from being normal to causing you distress.
It generally begins during adolescence, and it usually affects the armpits, hands, and feet. Hyperhidrosis has several special names depending on where the sweating occurs:
Axillary hyperhidrosis: sweating from the armpits.
Palmoplantar hyperhidrosis: sweating on the soles of the feet or the palms
While it’s not life-threatening in any way, Hyperhidrosis leads to embarrassment and difficulty with life. Many avoid social situations, won’t shake hands, have trouble forming romantic relationships, and may even have trouble writing or using anything that requires gripping items since the sweat makes it hard to hold items. A lot of people simply assume that they will have to live with this sweating.
How to Stop Excessive Sweating
There are many different ways to control sweating, and some work better than others. The first way to stop excessive sweating is to purchase powerful antiperspirants. Those who suffer from excessive sweating will start fighting it by purchasing standard antiperspirants.
However, these antiperspirants may not work, especially if your excessive sweating is truly excessive. There are, however, some more powerful antiperspirants out there. They’re designed to combat excessive sweating, and while they are more expensive, some say they really do work.
These prescription strength products all include aluminum chloride hexahydrate, a powerful antiperspirant.
Botox injections are another option, even though it is more often used in cosmetic surgery. Given under the arms, Botox can help close up the sweat pores. However, Botox injections aren’t exactly pleasant. Each armpit needs at least 20 different injections per treatment. Also, you have to have repeated treatments about every 4 months or so.
Botox has been used for excessive sweating of the hands and feet, although it has not been as effective. These injections are more painful-hand injections often require pain killers.
One of the oldest methods used to control excessive sweating is called Iontophoresis. It’s been used for over 50 years, but few understand exactly why it works. Studies have concluded that it most likely stops up the sweat ducts in some way. Iontophoresis uses water to conduct a light electric current over the patient’s skin. It’s not painful, despite what it sounds. However, it doesn’t work long-term; sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
There are many natural treatments for Hyperhidrosis. One of these remedies is baking soda. After thorough washing, apply cornstarch and baking soda under your arms. Wait for 25 minutes and then wash the mixture off with water.
Baking soda has the ability to absorb excess moisture, so no arm pit circles can be found on your clothes. Add essential oils into the mixture to act as a deodorizer. Do not forget to wash and shave your underarms before using this method else it will not help you.
While all of these methods can help deal with excessive sweating, many of them are not permanent. While taking medication, using prescription antiperspirants, and having Botox injections can help stop sweating, you have to spend money on repeat treatments, you have to feel pain, and you have to suffer from serious side effects which can seriously harm your health.