Excessive sweat, how to treat it? Symptoms, main causes and discomforts

Excessive sweat, how to treat it? Symptoms, main causes and discomforts

Known as hyperhidrosis, excessive sweating is not harmful to health, but it interferes with quality of life, resulting in social discomfort.

Sweating is normal while exercising, feeling hot or going through stressful situations. In this sense, sweat helps the body to cool down naturally. It works as if it were a ventilation system. However, excessive sweating can be uncomfortable and signal a health problem.

Therefore, hyperhidrosis, which is also called sweating, is a disorder that makes people sweat excessively in an unpredictable way, even at low temperatures or at rest. This disease can be caused by a number of factors, including thyroid, emotional situations, cancer, menopause or obesity.

In fact, a healthy person can also experience symptoms of excessive sweating, as long as the nervous system sends large amounts of stimuli to the sweat glands.

Even though this disorder is not harmful to health, it interferes with quality of life and causes embarrassment in the social environment. For example, if excessive sweat is on the hands, the person may end up avoiding greeting others.

Symptoms of excessive sweating

Excessive sweating causes physical and emotional discomfort. Whereas, primary hyperhidrosis only affects the hands, feet and armpits. This represents 2% of the population. Even so, less than 40% of patients in this situation seek medical help.

In early cases, often no cause is found, so doctors believe it could be a hereditary problem. In the case of secondary hyperhidrosis, it affects the entire body or just one area too much.

Secondary hyperhidrosis can be caused by conditions related to anxiety, menopause, heart disease, carcinoid syndrome, acromegaly, stroke, spinal cord injury, hyperthyroidism, cancer, lung disease, pheochromocytoma, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, or circumstances of abuse. .

If you experience excessive sweating in the following conditions, seek medical advice:

• Prolonged, excessive and unexplained sweating;
• Sweating with weight loss;
• Excessive sweating with pain or pressure in the chest;
• Feeling excessive sweating frequently during sleep;
• Mixture of excessive sweating, fever, weight loss, chest pain, shortness of breath or rapid heartbeat.

Main causes

On average, a person sweats between 800 ml and 1.4 liters during physical exercise. However, if this sweat bothers you to the point that it interferes with your daily activities, such as wearing flip-flops or getting objects around you wet, you need to see a doctor.

In short, there are two types of sweating: thermoregulatory, which comes into action when our body overheats, as well as emotional, which acts when our emotional stimuli produce sweat.

Sweat is our body’s defense, however, it can happen in an exaggerated way. There is no apparent or specific cause for this disorder, so it is recommended that you see a dermatologist to further investigate your case.

There are other specialists who can also carry out the diagnosis. They are: general practitioner, psychiatrist, psychologist, infectious disease specialist, oncologist, endocrinologist, urologist and pulmonologist.

The diagnosis is clinical, carried out through questions asked of the patient. Therefore, there are no laboratory tests, only when the doctor realizes that excessive sweating may be related to other more serious illnesses.

Treating excessive sweating

Some precautions can help reduce sweating and combat hyperhidrosis. In milder cases, wear light cotton clothing so that the skin breathes better.

In more serious cases, the use of aluminum chloride-based antiperspirants may be sufficient, as they block sweat.

Dermatologists usually recommend treatment with oxybutynin-based remedies. This is because they act within the sweat glands, reducing excess sweat.

In severe cases, it is necessary to use botulinum toxin treatment, an application made to the forehead, scalp and armpits for 8 to 12 months. The other option is sympathectomy surgery, where the doctor removes and burns the defective glands.

Botox application can be a way to control sweating.

There are two sweat glands called eccrine and apocrine, the first does not exude a smell, but the second produces body odor. They can mix with bacteria and cause yellowing of clothes or gross stains on the skin.

What did you think of this matter? Take the opportunity to also check out: Solar melanosis, what is it? Symptoms, prevention and treatments

Sources: Beleza na Web, Minha Vida, and Runners World

Images: Women’s Health, Hypeness, Saudável e Feliz, Notícias ao Minuto and Dr. Natalia Segatti