Meeting new people can be an anxiety-inducing task when you sweat excessively. Having sweaty hands makes introductions awkward, and introductions are already awkward to begin with. This social anxiety and stress can in turn make you sweat even more. It’s a viscous, anxiety-inducing cycle. However, excessive sweating isn’t just a quirk or matter of stress; it’s a real medical condition.
While it can be stressful to discover you have a medical condition, there is some good news: medical conditions can be treated. And if you need help with excessive sweating, first it helps to understand a bit about why humans sweat in the first place.
The average person can have between two and four million sweat glands. We perspire when our bodies become hot and those sweat glands activate. The sweat then evaporates, cooling us down. Some of our sweat glands are only for temperature regulation, while others are also triggered by stress, anxiety, and fluctuating hormones.
What is the cause of excessive sweating?
Hyperhidrosis is a condition that causes continuous sweating regardless of environmental conditions. It can happen all over your body, but the primary type of hyperhidrosis manifests in the feet, palms, armpits, and face. Primary hyperhidrosis is the overproduction of sweat from eccrine sweat glands, which are most prevalent in those areas. Basically, excessive sweating is caused by the overreaction of the nerves triggering the eccrine gland’s response.
What do I do about sweating hands?
Those who don’t suffer from hyperhidrosis tend to massively underestimate how crippling of a condition it can be. When your confidence in meeting people is so low, you can quite easily spiral into a depressed state. So if you’re after a clammy hands treatment that works, there are a few options to help you through this rough time.
- Prescription antiperspirant is a decent option if you only have an issue with armpit sweating. It also treats the symptom, not the problem, so you might have to reapply it throughout the day.
- Anticholinergic pills are effective at stopping sweating in its tracks but come with risky side effects like heart palpitations.
- Iontophoresis is perhaps the least dangerous and most effective method. It works by putting electrodes into a bowl of water in which you soak your hands, and then running a low current through the water. The leading theory is that you still sweat after, but it never reaches your skin.
If you find that you need a clammy hands treatment because excessive sweating is affecting your social life, talk to your doctor today about your best treatment options.
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