My 2001 ELS story

For feet sweating.
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JR31
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2014 7:29 am

My 2001 ELS story

Post by JR31 »

I had lumbar sympathectomy in 2001 in England. Two large incisions were made across my stomach and relevent nerves cut.
Since the operation my left foot has always been ridiculously dry (e.g. after a 60 minute treadmill workout there is still next-to-no sweat). Soon after the operation I realised the left side of my right foot would still sweat. Over the past fourteen years I have seen a slow and minor increase in sweating on my right foot, i.e. a bit of the sweating seems to have returned. The only thing I can think is that there has been some nerve development i.e. regrowth or nerves finding new pathways. As someone who has been through horrendous side-effects since 2002 (and I regret the operations every single day of my life) I am delighted with this apparent bit of nerve regrowth, and only wish that it would happen on a much larger scale!

admin
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Re: My 2001 ELS story

Post by admin »

JR31 thanks for this great update. It will help many people since not too many people who have had open lumbar sympathectomy or endoscopic lumbar sympathectomy (ELS) come by and post testimonials. In the entire world, there are probably less than 5,000 people who have had lumbar sympathectomy to treat feet sweating in the past few decades and very few come back to post on forums. In contrast, there could now be over 500,000 people worldwide who have had ETS surgery to cure hand sweating in the past few decades.

Who was your surgeon and have you talked to him/her about this thereafter? I am assuming this surgeon no longer does open lumbar sympathectomy and has moved on to the endoscopic approach?

JR31
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2014 7:29 am

Re: My 2001 ELS story

Post by JR31 »

Hi. I visited the surgeon in 2003 when the side-effects had been coming through for maybe 9-12 months, and then again a decade later because after all that time the side-effects had only gotten worse. His answer both times was basically the same - there is nothing he can offer as a surgeon (e.g. no miracle nerve reconstruction), so the only thing that might help is medication he said, but as I've posted on another section I just can't face going down the medication route again, it doesn't help long-term and the side-effects of the meds I've previously taken outweigh the benefit of reduced compensatory sweating.
The surgeon is based in England, and the operations were performed by the NHS.
I've no plan to go back to the NHS again now - there's nothing they can do, so it's a case of just having to deal with things as best as possible.

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