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Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 11:21 am
by golfer
I've tried various drugs to reduce sweating along with electrophoresis and nothing has worked. I'm sure this is the case for most of you here. This condition can be relentless but there are ways to actively combat the sweating and I hope you all give them a try because these methods have worked extremely well for me.

I'm going to medical school in August and have always been fascinated by the physiology of our human bodies. So I have been using myself sort of as a test rat for these sweat reducing therapies by altering habits to find out what does or does not help my sweating.

I noticed that the areas on my hands that have calluses rarely sweat. These calluses usually came from playing golf ~5 times a week during the summer months. When I noticed a sweat trigger occurring (that flushing feeling when you know oncoming sweat is inevitable) I noticed that the callused area may sweat a little but overall it was much less and the duration of the sweat 'episode' was significantly less than I have become used to.

Also, I am an avid runner and barefoot running is something I do occasionally. I would run barefoot on pavement or wherever, true barefoot running, and noticed that the soles of my feet stopped sweating. I noticed after a long day of work my socks would be wet from absorbing all the sweat from around my foot, but the bottoms of the socks were dry! So the part of my foot that was thickened and callused from barefoot running would not sweat despite the sides/tops of my feet sweating a lot.

So the pattern here is this: the parts of my hands/feet that have become thickened/toughened/callused are less prone to sweating. So we have a pattern but without a valid explanation as to why the sweating has decreased and without more people to validate the results it is anecdotal and of little use to us. But it recently occurred to me that maybe the key is desensitization of our nerves.

Think about it: electrophoresis - we literally shock ourselves in hopes that it stops sweating. The electric current is supposed to 'shut down' or deactivate the nerve receptors in our hands to some extent to lessen sweating. Same with the drugs like aluminum chloride or botox or other topical agents. They work by inhibiting nerve impulses.

So one way to do this without drugs is abrasion. I found rubbing my hands on my skateboard deck (grip tape) works exceptionally well. Sand paper would work well also. At the most basic level this is making the nerve receptors in our hands less sensitive, similar to how barefoot running made the bottoms of my feet tougher and less sensitive to stimuli.

My routine is this : I rub my hands against this grip tape / sand paper quickly, like I'm exfoliating. Don't over do it, this does not hurt me in any way and I'm certainly not coming anywhere close to it being painful or bleeding. Just some exfoliation. I do it when my hands are dry and usually at night before I go to bed. It has worked very well for me and I hope others can find similar success. The results are not immediate but ~1 week you might notice them.

I don't do it for my feet because I don't care that my feet sweat. It's my hands that I really want to stop sweating so that's what I focus on.

In addition, read my thread about drinking a lot of water. Drinking a lot of water and this exfoliating technique work great in tandem.

Also, I am not a doctor. I have no medical training whatsoever. I am only reporting what I have noticed works for me and you should always listen to your doctor. Good luck and please respond below how this works for you if you decide to try it.

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 12:58 pm
by golfer
Checking in again. Laid off the exfoliation for a while for no other reason than that I was forgetting to do it. My hand sweating was getting much better so I suppose that's why I was forgetting to do it. My sweating returned and it became a big problem for me again. I didn't realize the increase in sweating right away since it is something I've been dealing with my whole life so I didn't think much of it. But then I remembered I wasn't exfoliating my hands at all anymore, began this "scrubbing" technique again and It has absolutely made a huge positive impact.

Not seeing much interest in this post, but as a future health care provider I feel responsible for sharing any information I have that has been significantly helpful. Especially because this form of therapy is extremely easy to use and as far as I can tell has absolutely no negative side effects in addition to being the most helpful out of all treatment forms I have used.

Drysol (aluminum chloride), iontophoresis (1000 dollar product), pills I took twice daily that left my mouth terribly dry but still didn't help much with sweating (forgot the name of the pills). I've tried all these 'remedies' and this simple exfoliating technique has been better for me than any of them by far. I want other people to try this and let me know how it goes. I really think this can help a lot of people.

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 3:01 pm
by admin
Hey golfer, for some reason I never read your initial post and have to say that your idea is extremely interesting. Now I might try this on my feet although I am not yet sure.

Can you look/search on Amazon.com and post a link to any sandpaper type product that you think would work?

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 5:39 pm
by Starrski
Hey golfer, havent been checking in this forum much after my initial post about CS after ETS, but i know what you mean about not having any interest. It's just the silent readers i suppose. Also, admin, really hats off to you for maintaining this forum and checking in without fail. thanks for taking the effort to tune in and share your experience and advise others. are you by any chance the author of the no-ets website because if you are, i really want to say thank you for listing out and taking down all the things that's on that website, and for keeping almost everything updated with current situations. One of the things that i've failed to find is long term reports on hyperhidrosis such as long term reports of post ETS / iontophoresis and the author of the website has done a really good job on updating things.

Let me firstly congratulate you on medical school, it's quite a tough course to get in. I've always sort of dreamed about the possibility of a Med student who's actually suffering from palmar hyperhidrosis to sort of become a doctor that gets into the same field because that person understands exactly how life is like having the condition. maybe even going along the lines of majoring in nerves (which what my doctor did). Just daydreaming about having a doctor who suffered from the condition to actually be experienced in the field. hahaha. regardless of what you eventually major in, i wish you luck in med school. ok it's been about 30 hours since i last slept so im sorry if im not making any sense at all.

as to your suggestion, i might try it sometime.

have just recenly found out more decent information about iontophoresis, reverse polarity and maintenance treatments so i am actually really eager to try it out again but the machines are pretty costly. Just curious as to why your iontophoresis didnt work, do you have any thoughts on that matter? maybe it was the water, the device or such.

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 7:58 pm
by admin
Thanks starrski...yes I wrote everything on no-ets.com and try to update things on there every few months.

This forum has very few regular participants. Glad to see you come back.

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 3:41 pm
by golfer
Not sure why iontophoresis wasn't working. I followed the instructions as they were written (I got one of the legitimate ones that were about 1000$. luckily got a refund though :) ). I really just didn't see any sort of improvement at all. My hands were sweating like they always would. I added salt to the solution and everything.

This exfoliating technique I think is best suited for treating the hands. And I'm not sure about what type of sandpaper to use. I've skateboarded basically my whole life so I just use a skateboard and I just rub my hands along my skateboard on the griptape side to get the desired abrasion. Not sure how well sandpaper would work functionally since it's loose and I feel like it could tear easily without being attached to anything.

But I do plan on researching hyperhidrosis further once I'm in school. It's just difficult to do because so few people suffer from it so it's hard to find participants. I'm not sure how the scientific community would feel about me using myself as the subject because I would also be the proctor (sort of like a teacher taking the test and grading it too!).

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:27 pm
by golfer
Just sort of bumping this thread because this therapy is legit in my opinion. Just as a disclaimer, I am in no way trying to profit or benefit from you all trying this therapy. It has been working great for me and I want the word to get out purely to help you all. The only drawback to this technique is that it works really well so I forget to do it sometimes. As in, my hands aren't sweating so I'm not thinking about sweating or how to fix it so I forget to exfoliate.

Half way finished medical school by the way. Haven't been here in a while but saw some of the threads about new medications. I'll check them out when I have time.

cheers

Re: Huge improvement. A must read

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2022 12:44 pm
by majerkravchuk
Hey golfer, thanks for sharing this! I'll definitely try in the near future
And would love to hear about how you're dealing with hyperhidrosis now - the same way or something new