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What Is Excessive Sweating

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What Is Excessive Sweating?

Everyone sweats when it’s hot outside, but people who have hyperhidrosis experience excessive sweating to the point that moisture may literally drip from their hands. Hyperhidrosis causes them to sweat profusely even without cause.

Normally, your sweat glands produce perspiration that’s carried to the skin’s surface when the air temperature rises, you develop a fever, you’re exercising, or you’re feeling anxious, nervous, or under stress. When those factors are no longer an issue, the nerves that signal sweating are put on hold.

For the 1% to 2% of the population who have hyperhidrosis, however, the sweat glands don’t shut off. They sweat even when the circumstances don’t call for it: when they’re in air conditioning, or while they’re sitting and watching television. Some people even tell their doctors that they sweat in a swimming pool.

The causes of hyperhidrosis depend on the type of sweating occurring. Most times, excessive sweating is harmless. In some cases, doctors don’t know why people sweat too much. In other cases, the causes of hyperhidrosis may be a medical condition that you don’t want to miss.

Treating severe excessive sweating

taking tablets that reduce sweating
treating the areas with a weak electric current passed through water or on a wet pad (iontophoresis)
having botox injections for sweating under the armpits (this may not be available on the NHS)

A pharmacist can help with excessive sweating

You can also see a pharmacist about excessive sweating. There are things they can give you over the counter, such as:

stronger antiperspirants instead of deodorant
armpit or sweat shields to protect your clothing
foot powders for sweaty feet
soap substitutes that are more gentle on your skin

Primary Hyperhidrosis Causes

If your sweat glands had an “on” switch, the glands of someone with primary hyperhidrosis would always be flipped up.

When your body is overheated, when you’re moving around, when you’re feeling emotional, or as a result of hormones, then nerves activate the sweat glands. When those nerves overreact, it causes hyperhidrosis. For instance, someone may only need to think of a situation that causes anxiety in order to break out in a profuse sweat.

If you just sweat more than other people when it’s hot or you’re exerting yourself, that’s not usually a sign of trouble. Sweating is a normal reaction when your body’s working harder and needs to cool itself down.

“There are natural variations in how people sweat, just as there are variations in other bodily functions,” says Dee Anna Glaser, MD, vice chair of the dermatology department at St. Louis University and president of the International Hyperhidrosis Society.

“Let’s say that the temperature is mild, and you’re not anxious, and you don’t have a fever, and you’re just watching a movie with your family,” says Glaser. “If you’re sitting there sweating profusely, that’s not normal.”

Barankin says that there are two basic types of excessive sweating: localized hyperhidrosis and generalized hyperhidrosis.

Treatment for all skin types

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