Abnormally increased sweating is sometimes called perspiration and is medically termed hyperhidrosis. Most of the sweat glands are concentrated in certain areas like the armpits, feet and hands but they do occur all over the body.
It’s very common to sweat profusely in the summer months when the weather is hot and also when you exercise. The body temperature is regulated very tightly as any large fluctuations in temperature can be harmful to it. When it gets too hot, the body’s best way of losing that excess heat is by sweating, and evaporation of sweat from the skin becomes the major method of getting rid of the surplus heat from the body. Some people have more sweat glands than others.
There are two types of excessive perspiration:
Focal hyperhydrosis, where only certain parts of the body (armpits, hands, etc) sweat excessively and this can often be genetic
Generalised hyperhidrosis where the whole body is affected.
Exessive sweating can either be primary or secondary.
Primary hyperhidrosis is when there is no apparent cause for the sweating and typically begins in the late teen, early to mid twenties.
Secondary hyperhidrosis is when the sweating is caused by an underlying medical condition such as an overactive thyroid, the menopause, obesity, fever or even cancer.
Most of the cases of localised sweating or focal hyperhidrosis are Primary, which means there is no particular or apparent cause for it and can begin at any age.
Generalised, all over sweating is often due to an underlying health condition. Which is why you should always see a doctor in order to rule out any underlying medical condition.
People seem to be reluctant to seek medical advice for exessive sweating because they don’t think anything can be done about it, are embarrassed or think it’s too trivial to see a doctor about.
Treatments for excessive sweating
The main recommended treatments are based on aluminium chloride. Liquid formulations of aluminium chloride eg Driclor, are applied at night to dry skin, and washed off in the morning. The treatment is done daily at first but the frequency can be reduced as the condition improves. In some extreme cases surgery involving cutting of the nerves in the neck is performed, but as you can imagine, this is a drastic solution. The latest treatment being used is Botox but that can be quite costly and lasts from four to twelve months.
More and more people are turning to natural remedies to treat excessive sweating because the most common treatment, aluminium chloride, has been linked to breast cancer and alzheimer’s.
