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Facts About Armpit Sweating

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by Alan Baker

We are inundated with stressful situations every day of our lives; dealing with the kids, the bills, the health problems, the in-laws, the car; and most of us don’t even have to worry about what it is like to live with the effects of excessive sweating. But there is a small percentage of the population that does have to worry about that, and when you are part of that group, you know just how life-altering and oppressive armpit sweating can become.

Just what is armpit sweating, or as it is known in scientific circles; axillary hyperhidrosis. Literally it is a condition that occurs when the sweat glands in the skin under your arms become overactive and generate too much sweat, so instead of evaporating at a given speed to cool down your body, the sweating becomes so profuse that it runs down your sides and soaks your clothes at the same time generating a permeating smell because the bacteria that inhabit the skin are now having a swim party in the excessive sweat and producing the odor. This type of excessive sweating is not usually focused in just one spot on the body; those who suffer from armpit sweating usually also have foot sweating and hand sweating, so they also have to think twice before shaking someone’s hand.

Finding a remedy that will work is also an obstacle that sufferers of armpit sweating have to overcome. Most people like to make a good first impression when they go out in public, and with all the stressors that we have in our lives today; keeping our emotions under control and so keeping the sweating down to a manageable level so we look our best at all times, is a real challenge. Approximately 1% of the general population is afflicted with this condition and they can tell you horror stories of blouses or shirts being soaked completely and stained with sweat and odor, even outside jackets being involved; when they were to stand up in front of co-workers at a meeting, or meet a client for the first time and appeared as though they had been digging ditches all morning in their work clothes.

The more technical side of the affliction concerns what actually causes armpit sweating in such volumes and what is happening. The glands that are involved in sweat production are the apocrine glands and the eccrine glands and they each have their own function. The apocrine glands are actually outgrowths of the hair follicles and produce a thick, viscous sweat which leads to odor production when coming in contact with skin bacteria. The eccrine glands produce the clear, watery portion of the sweat, and are primarily for thermal regulation and function to cool down the overheated body, and do not produce the sweat that causes odor.

If you are suffering from a form of armpit sweating, one thing you can do is to try and treat it with the more conservative forms of medicine that are available in the market place before trying something more invasive, like surgery. Medicines like Odaban, Maxim, Botox, and Drysol are readily available and do work for some people, but others may not have as much luck; and with the extreme forms of excessive sweating, only surgery can help.

Surgery is available for those who have reached the end of their rope and cannot live with the effects of excessive sweating for a minute longer. But it is to be remembered that everything has its price, and surgery cannot promise that there will be a 100% success rate. Just as everything else is that is risky, surgery sometimes has side effects as for example scarring of the skin areas involved, or loss of mobility in the affected area . The first type of surgery that can be performed to lessen armpit sweating is the removal of the overactive glands themselves done by superficial liposuction. The other surgery form that is implemented to lessen the overactivity of the glands is excising the skin of the area by removing parts of the skin layer. This is the form that can cause scarring and mobility problems. Again, neither form can be relied upon to be the total eradicator of the problem.

Excessive sweating of all kinds can be a life-changing experience for many people, and can get so overwhelming that persons afflicted with the disorder just cannot function the same as those who do not suffer from it. Armpit sweating is just one example of the many types of excessive sweating that folks have to deal with, but it can be helped with remedies available in the market place and can be brought under control through a doctor’s care and some of the more advanced technology dealing with this problem that we have available to us today.

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