Treating Underarm Sweat With Botox

Suppose you’ve experienced excessive sweating for any significant length of time. In that case, you’ll likely be very familiar with many of the possible concealment and treatment options available, from careful dietary planning to only wearing dark upper body clothing, using clinical prescription antiperspirants, or getting Botox.

Persistent hyperhidrosis or excessive sweating can cause a person to feel desperate and dejected as very large and prominent sweat stains routinely appear, usually in their underarms, while doing perfectly ordinary activities like walking down the street or sitting in on a lighthearted conversation. And these pools of sweat are often accompanied by stained clothing and an unwanted odor.

Botox is a fast-acting, long-lasting, and effective treatment option for abnormal underarm sweating, and for many patients, it is the best treatment available. Botox is FDA approved for treating excessive underarm sweating and can be used with excellent results in the armpits, hands, feet, and face. Here is what to know if you are considering it:

1. Excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis) can be intensely bothersome

Most people tend to sweat as a natural cool-down mechanism of the body only during/after exercise, exertion, intense physical activity, and elevated body temperatures. But for as much as 15 million people in America or roughly 4.8 percent of the population, sweating isn’t initiated only by intense physical activities, but even by everyday actions like taking a light walk, sitting at a desk, or driving in moderate weather.

2. Excessive sweating in the armpits, hands, and feet can be treated with Botox

The exact cause of hyperhidrosis is unknown, but the condition is commonly associated with an overactive sympathetic nervous system. Botox treats it by blocking the transmission of a chemical that activates the sweat glands. In addition to vastly reduced underarm sweating, your armpits and feet particularly will also emit less odor since the sweat isn’t constantly there to accumulate bacteria.

3. Botox can reduce underarm sweating by almost 90 percent

Botox is usually extremely effective in reducing excessive sweating in the armpits and other parts of the body. Treatment typically doesn’t remove 100% of sweat but instead reduces it so that the remaining 10 to 20 percent remaining is light enough to be undetectable. Most patients will wear light-colored clothing again and enjoy everyday activities without any attention to their persistent sweating.

Although Botox does block the transmission of most of the sweat-inducing chemicals covered above, you will retain full use and function of your arm, hands, or feet after getting Botox for excessive sweating, and no change will be required in your underarm care after the procedure.

4. Sweat isn’t re-routed elsewhere but is simply not created in the first place

Some people have the mistaken belief that “blocking” the sweat in the underarms or other areas of the body simply causes it to go elsewhere. They believe that underarm Botox will make them sweat more from other parts of the body. This isn’t so.

After your Botox for hyperhidrosis treatment, you won’t end up sweating elsewhere any more than you currently do since sweat in the treatment area is simply not produced by your body, to begin with: the nerve signals that previously caused it are simply no longer transmitted. You will still sweat lightly or naturally in the treated area and other areas of the body.

5. Treatment is safe, simple, and straightforward

A majority of patients undergoing Botox will experience very little to no side effects of the treatment. Treatment sessions are also moderately comfortable, with the smallest possible needle used to inject the product, so you’re likely to feel only a mild pinch. Perhaps a handful of the many injections required in each armpit (say 5 out of 20) might cause a greater degree of discomfort, but significant pain is extremely rare.

6. First-time patient results can last six months or longer

For patients getting Botox to treat excessive sweating for the first time, results may begin to be seen within as few as three to five days, though for others, one to two weeks is more realistic. These results should last up to six months, and the results of subsequent Botox treatments should last even longer.