Sometime, sweat is not a good thing

What is Sweat?

Normal sweat is triggered by :

• messages from the brain indicating that the body is too warm
• hormones
• emotions
• physical activity or exercise

If your sweat is not triggered by any of these activities, it is called excessive sweating condition or in medical term, hyperhidrosis. We as the ex-sufferers of hyperhidrosis would like to offer our help, our care, and our knowledge to all sufferers and their families.

Will breadmaker with sweating hands make saltier bread? The answer is NO as sweat from hyperhidrosis activity is tasteless and clear while normal sweat will taste slightly salty.

Therefore the bread in the above statement should have been soggy and not saltier. Sometimes even normal person can produce this tasteless clear liquid (hyperhidrosis sweat). It happens only when the person is extremely nervous.

do you guys sweat? well thats normal. but have you ever sweat excessively? sweat until you are out of control of it?

well, thats pretty abnormal.
some people experience excessive sweating. In this condition, it works at an unusually high level to regulate the temperature. This excessive sweating activity is known as HYPERHIDROSIS.

You may think that you are alone and nobody understands your condition, even your own family members. Thank god you are not!! For 1 out of 100 friends that you know, he/she is probably suffering silently from hyperhidrosis too. For the rest of the people (99), please be grateful for having a healthy and normal body condition.

Those people will never have to experience embarrassing moments like shaking hands with a wet palm, wetting your clothes without doing any heavy activities in a cold room, hand in a wet examination answer sheet and so on. Do the sufferings sound familiar to you?

And guess what? I'm the 1 out of the 100.

But its not the end of the day yet.

theres a cure. A surgical solution.

Treatments for palmar hyperhidrosis range from home remedies (antiperspirants) to medications (sedatives) to non-surgical techniques (injections with botulinum toxin or iontophoresis). None of these treatments are especially effective or attractive. Taking sedatives to calm your nervous system will probably make you unnecessarily drowsy. Injecting your palms with botulinum toxin takes 50 to 60 injections, repeated every six months. Iontophoresis requires you to soak your hands in a small tub of water and pass direct current through it to shock the sweat glands in your hands. 'Unfortunately, this method is painful, time-consuming and you often need to repeat it,' Dr Khoo says. 'Fortunately, there is one treatment that is permanent,' he assures, 'a surgical procedure called sympathectomy to cut off the sympathetic nerves.' These sympathetic nerves lie throughout the whole backbone. Cutting specific nerves in the sympathetic nervous system will block the nervous supply to the sweat glands in the hands, face and armpits. Originally a procedure that required surgeons to make a four-inch cut through the skin and open the ribs, sympathectomy was deemed risky and painful until video-assisted surgery was introduced. Now, video-assisted thoracoscopic sympathectomy can be done by inserting a camera into a 5mm incision just under the armpit. 'This is a safe operation, the results are excellent, and the scarring is minimal,' says Dr Khoo.

After undergoing the surgery, the patient may experience compensatory sweating elsewhere, usually on the back, the trunk or in front of the thighs. Video-assisted thoracoscopic sympathectomy costs approximately RM9,000 at a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur. The question now is whether this procedure is a medical necessity or just cosmetic surgery. 'Disease is defined as something that affects a person psychologically, physically and socially. When (palmar hyperhidrosis) becomes a problem where you cannot meet people and cannot work, it is a disease,' Dr Khoo justifies. Cheong agrees: 'It's a serious medical condition. It's a daily struggle that negatively affects everything.' For Lee, undergoing the surgery has been nothing short of life changing. 'My hands are dry now,' he says simply, grateful for something that the rest of us take for granted. At the end of the interview, I hold my hand out to Lee. Without hesitating, he returns my handshake. Dry, warm and confident.

For more info, feel free to log on to : wet hands club.com