My lack of success with Hidrex PS 500!

[Rob]

Hi all.

I am now approaching a whole year of trialling the Hidrex machine and have all but given up!

I used for Plantar and Underarm perspiration. Both areas tend to stay damp all day. Underarms of T-shirts begin to smell weird within hours!

I first used at 28v for 15 minutes - feet and 15v for 14 minutes underarms, both in pulsed mode. After 12 days of consecutive use I believe I had cured my excessive sweating. Howevor I muddled the results up.. I had been drinking alcohol earlier that day (stops my sweat 100% - only whilst I'm intoxicated). Unfortunately I fell ill the next two days and once I began using Hidrex again I never ever got those results again. I'm sure it was the machine because the only area of my socks that were not dry after walking 2 hours were the tops of toes which would make sense as water in Hidrex tray doesn't reach that height so couldn't work on this area!

Over the next 10 months I have used at low settings, high settings, with baking soda and without, had breaks of up to 2 months. Just finished 21 consecutive days at 30-32v pulsed for feet/30 minutes. Not a iota of difference!!

One thing puzzles me... only towards the end of these 21 days did I feel a slight amount of irritation on a small part of the sole of one foot. I remember when first using the machine that itching discomfort on both feet would drive me round the bend everytime I used it...and to think the voltage was less and for just 15 minutes back then! I wonder has something gone wrong with the metal plates??

God bless the Hidrex team - they have been as helpful as possible but even they are stumped at my lack of results. Anyone here have a clue as to what is going wrong or what I should do? These machins are soooo expensive! Don't want to give up when it costs so much! And LOL at the SweatBlock advert above, that didn't do a thing for me, neither did Odaban, Drysol etc etc- well they work but cause some severe irritation during the day and esp at night so can't use

[admin]

Two suggestions:

1) Try a very shallow depth (which I assume the Hidrex team might have already mentioned).
2) Try different water types, including bottled water. I remember that a while back I read a post or writeup by someone on the internet who had no results with the Fisher device for a long time, but suddenly got excellent results after using a particular brand of bottled water. Wish I had saved that post.

So I assume that since you are well past the return date, the Hidrex team will not offer you a refund? I am curious what suggestions were given to you by the Hidrex team? For me, it worked amazingly well in the US, but did not work in London (UK).

Regarding the Sweatblock ad above, the product will most likely only work well for armpits as you can see from the image of the happy woman, and most prescription strength antiperspirants will give you decent results in the armpits from my personal experience. The feet are much much more difficult, and that is my main problem area too.

Here are close to 20,000 Amazon reviews on Sweatblock FYI:

https://amzn.to/4iCyrsX

I would also recommend calling Dr. Whiteley's office in the UK to find out more about the SDLA procedure for the armpits (he e-mailed me recently and said he has done over 100 of these now). I am not responsible for success or failure of course...just giving you another idea that is preferable to ETS surgery.

[admin]

Soon after posting the above, I noticed this thread on the forum:

http://www.no-ets.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=834

So Rob, please try Evian bottled water if you haven't already and post here if that helps.

[Rob]

Hi admin,

Thankyou for the detailed response! Haha yes I read the Amazon reviews too, that's what convinced me to try Sweatblock for my underarms. I'm a bit more wary of Amazon reviews now as I recently read how teams in countries such as India are paid by manufacturers to create Amazon profiles and write positive reviews for products. It makes sense..I once purchased a book that had one of the highest ratings on Amazon and it was the most terribly written book I had ever come across, like a 10 year old had written it!

The Hidrex team, surprisingly didn't mention using a minimal amount of water, that's new to me, I shall give it a try. So far they have only mentioned voltages/settings. As I have a feeling that the metal plates are not conducting the treatment effectively due to the lack of discomfort, I attached a picture of one of the plates and sent by email to Hidrex. The response I got today was to use a decalcifier or order a new set of plates as there 'appears to be a buildup on it'.

I will try to deep-clean the plates, next step if that doesn't work is to try the Evian bottled water. I have read on some other forums too that the mineral content in the water you use plays a big part in the results. My local water is classed as 'medium soft' and only contains a small amount of Calcium etc so maybe that's the culprit!

It might take a few weeks to trial the above (I may have to order new plates for my machine if de-scaling doesn't work) but if I do notice any difference I will be sure to post on here aswell as pass on to Hidrex to make that information of use to other people.

[admin]

When I say minimal amount of water, I mean that if your feet sweat on the sides and heels too (say till half way up to the ankle), reduce the water level to one-quarter the way up to the ankle level. You might get some remaining sweat above the water line, but at least you will get rid of the most bothersome area of sweating if the treatment works.

If you feet do not seat on the upper sides and heel area, definitely reduce the water level even more.

Look forward to reading your response in a month or less.

[Rob]

Update on results so far: have been using Evian bottled water since re-starting on 3rd march. On first day it irritated like crazy. To me this meant it was working and I may have been imagining things but the next day I am sure the soles of my socks were not as wet as usual after walking 30 minutes. This was based on 15 mins at 28v and only 500ml per tray. The next day I doubled the amount of water to previous levels. No irritation. Since then gone up to 36v and back down to 500ml per tray but still very little irritation. Today is the 13th March and I have tried various ways, water temperature's etc to try to get the irritation back. Seems I did on the day I washed the entire unit and soaked the plates in vinegar again. But again it lasted just one day. Again I am sure sweating decreased just a little the following day. I will keep trying until I can figure out what is providing results. Water type/temperature/depth/voltage/time used/

Admin do you have any idea if feet should feel irritation in order for it to work? I assume no pain no gain. If memory serves me correct it was only when it irritated when using very first time early last year that I saw some results.

Keeping a daily written log of each variation in order to pinpoint what works.

[admin]

Admin do you have any idea if feet should feel irritation in order for it to work? I assume no pain no gain. If memory serves me correct it was only when it irritated when using very first time early last year that I saw some results.

Hi Rob, I got virtually no pain when I first used Hidrex and the results were amazing. However, some people have claimed that they only saw results after feeling some pain or sensation during treatment, so hopefully you will have the same experience.

I think with Idromed I used to get some tingling/itching during and after treatment in several of my toes, but I am currently on hiatus from treatment and will restart when I can decide on what things to measure in the water per that new project I have started. Seems like this winter my feet do not sweat as much as usual, so I am a bit lazy when it comes to iontophoresis.

[Rob]

Update: Using non-pulsed 11v for underarms 3 x 5 minutes and 38v non-pulsed feet 15 minutes - daily, I have noticed a small reduction in sweating. That began approx a month into treatment. Underarms are 60-70% improved which isn't really good enough because any of the maximum strength deodorants could do even better than that and were great (if it wasn't for waking up with severe itching!) plus it feels like my body overheats when walking for a while in relatively cool weather and i get compensatory sweating from lower back, arms, chest - my entire upper body literally! Feet I cannot even tell you if there is a difference because I can't tell so I'm assuming 30% - if that. But socks are still damp and smell at the end of the day and skin still chaffing between toes.

I eventually gave up on Evian water a month ago and tap water seems to be doing the same thing. In one month since noticing results I have not seen any further improvement. Cannot increase voltage as it burns.

Tried a beta-blocker, it did nothing. Tried Pro-banthine, side effects forced me to stop.

For the amount of time/hassle it takes each day, Hidrex doesn't seem worth it. I may aswell try other methods of using the anti-perspirants i.e talc beforehand, or AM use before washing off soon after. It's when I had night sweats that the irritation from them flared up, they were fine otherwise. Believe it or not but any type of *** activity right before going to sleep causes me very bad night sweats, have concluded this over the last two weeks by going with and without and jotting down the results the next morning. I don't ever get them on nights when I simply fall asleep! Now that I have pinpointed that connection I could try the anti-perspirants again. Just means I'll have to alter my 'routine' a bit

[markus]

Dear Rob, are you really one of our customers (cause of our money back guarantee we would have gotten the machine back?). I would suggest you use our special iontophoresis forum under
iontophoresis-device-dot-com
to determine what can be improved. I saw some things that might not be ok, but we have our special methodology to look at the things.